Unusually high thermal conductivity of carbon nanotubes

Combining equilibrium and nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations wit h accurate carbon potentials, we determine the thermal conductivity lambda of carbon nanotubes and its dependence on temperature. Our results suggest an unusually high value, lambda approximate to 6600 W/m K, for an isolated (10, 10) nanotube at room temperature, comparable to the thermal conductivi ty of a hypothetical isolated graphene monolayer or diamond. Our results su ggest that these high values of lambda are associated with the large phonon mean free paths in these systems; substantially lower values are predicted and observed for the basal plane of bulk graphite.