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Heat conduction and energy relaxation in an InAs nanowire approaching the clean one-dimensional limit

Subhomoy Haldar1,2,*, Diego Subero3, Mukesh Kumar1, Bayan Karimi3,4, Adam Burke1, Lars Samuelson1,5, Jukka Pekola3, and Ville F. Maisi1,†

  • *Contact author: shaldar@iitk.ac.in
  • †Contact author: ville.maisi@ftf.lth.se
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Phys. Rev. B 114, 285409 – Published 6 November, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/g2cs-pdcw

Abstract

We investigate heat conduction and energy relaxation in an InAs semiconductor nanowire using a hybrid semiconductor-superconductor architecture. Local electronic temperatures are measured with an insitu grown quantum dot thermometer, while controlled Joule heating is applied at different locations along the wire to probe the heat flow along the nanowire at subkelvin temperatures. With a one-dimensional heat transport model, we calculate an electron-phonon heat flow that scales as Qe-ph∝T2.6, which is in close agreement with the T3 dependence predicted for clean one-dimensional phonons coupled to the electron gas. We further estimate a characteristic length leq=370nm; beyond this length scale, phonon-mediated heat transport dominates over heat conduction in our nanowire. Our results provide a quantitative measure of energy relaxation mechanisms in a one-dimensional semiconductor and provide a framework for studying heat flow in low-dimensional nanostructures.

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Outline

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Phys. Rev. B 114, 285409– Published 6 November, 2026
  • Received 31 March 2026
  • Revised 4 September 2026
  • Accepted 19 October 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by Bibsam.

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