Thermal conductance quantum

In physics, the thermal conductance quantum ${\displaystyle g_{0}}$ describes the rate at which heat is transported through a single ballistic phonon channel with temperature ${\displaystyle T}$.

It is given by

${\displaystyle g_{0}={\frac {\pi ^{2}{k_{\rm {B}}}^{2}T}{3h}}\approx (9.464\times 10^{-13}{\rm {W/K}}^{2})\;T}$.

The thermal conductance of any electrically insulating structure that exhibits ballistic phonon transport is a positive integer multiple of ${\displaystyle g_{0}.}$ The thermal conductance quantum was first measured in 2000. These measurements employed suspended silicon nitride (Si
₃N
₄) nanostructures that exhibited a constant thermal conductance of 16 ${\displaystyle g_{0}}$ at temperatures below approximately 0.6 kelvin.