Title: Adverse effects of polymer coating on heat transport at solid-liquid interface,
Abstract: The ability of metallic nanoparticles to supply heat to a liquid environment
under exposure to an external optical field has attracted growing interest for
biomedical applications. Controlling the thermal transport properties at a
solid-liquid interface then appears to be particularly relevant. In this work,
we address the thermal transport between water and a gold surface coated by a
polymer layer. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we demonstrate that
increasing the polymer density displaces the domain resisting to the heat flow,
while it doesn't affect the final amount of thermal energy released in the
liquid. This unexpected behavior results from a trade-off established by the
increasing polymer density which couples more efficiently with the solid but
initiates a counterbalancing resistance with the liquid.