Interfacial thermal resistance (ITR) is the main obstacle for heat flows from one material to another. Understanding ITR becomes essential for the removal of redundant heat from fast and powerful electronic and photonic devices, batteries, etc. In this review, a comprehensive examination of ITR is conducted. Particular focus is placed on the theoretical, computational, and experimental developments in the 30 years after the last review given by Swartz and Pohl in 1989. To be self-consistent, the fundamental theories, such as the acoustic mismatch model, the diffuse mismatch model, and the two-temperature model, are reviewed. The most popular computational methods, including lattice dynamics, molecular dynamics, the Green’s function method, and the Boltzmann transport equation method, are discussed in detail. Various experimental tools in probing ITR, such as the time-domain thermoreflectance, the thermal bridge method, the $3\omega$ method, and the electron-beam self-heating method, are illustrated. This review covers ITR (also known as the thermal boundary resistance or Kapitza resistance) of solid-solid, solid-liquid, and solid-gas interfaces. Such fundamental challenges as how to define the interface, temperature, etc. when the materials scale down to the nanoscale or atomic scale and the opportunities for future studies are also pointed out.

Thermal rectification is a fundamental phenomenon for active heat flow control. Significant thermal rectification is expected to exist in the asymmetric nanostructures, such as nanowires and thin films. As a one-atom-thick membrane, graphene has attracted much attention for realizing thermal rectification as shown by many molecular dynamics simulations. Here, we experimentally demonstrate thermal rectification in various asymmetric monolayer graphene nanostructures. A large thermal rectification factor of 26% is achieved in a defect-engineered monolayer graphene with nanopores on one side. A thermal rectification factor of 10% is achieved in a pristine monolayer graphene with nanoparticles deposited on one side or with a tapered width. The results indicate that the monolayer graphene has great potential to be used for designing high-performance thermal rectifiers for heat flow control and energy harvesting.

Thermal conductivity κ of both suspended and supported graphene has been studied by using molecular dynamics simulations. An obvious length dependence is observed in κ of suspended single-layer graphene (SLG), while κ of supported SLG is insensitive to the length. The simulation result of room temperature κ of supported SLG is in good agreement with the experimental value. In contrast to the decrease in κ induced by inter-layer interaction in suspended few-layer graphene (FLG), κ of supported FLG is found to increase rapidly with the layer thickness, reaching about 90% of that of bulk graphite at six layers, and eventually saturates at the thickness of 13.4 nm. More interestingly, unlike the remarkable substrate dependent κ in SLG, the effect of substrate on thermal transport is much weaker in FLG. The underlying physics is investigated and presented.