Nanoscale Heat Transport in Synthetic Opals

Synthetic opals represent new materials where the heat flow is drastically reduced due to the huge numbers of internal interfaces and thermal barriers. The study of the heat transport in such materials may be performed by applying photothermal techniques. In particular photothermal deflection technique allows to measure the sample effective thermal diffusivity, while photothermal radiometry allows to localize the internal heat sources where the light is absorbed.