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Inelastic phonon transport across atomically sharp metal/semiconductor interfaces

Journal Article · · Nature Communications
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [1];  [4];  [4];  [4];  [5];  [3];  [6];  [7];  [3];  [6];  [2]
  1. Tsinghua University, Shenzhen (China)
  2. Peking University, Beijing (China); Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, Beijing (China)
  3. Shanghai Jiao Tong University (China)
  4. Peking University, Beijing (China)
  5. National University of Singapore (Singapore)
  6. Tsinghua University, Shenzhen (China); Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School and Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Thermal Management Engineering & Materials, Shenzhen (China)
  7. University of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations
Understanding thermal transport across metal/semiconductor interfaces is crucial for the heat dissipation of electronics. The dominant heat carriers in non-metals, phonons, are thought to transport elastically across most interfaces, except for a few extreme cases where the two materials that formed the interface are highly dissimilar with a large difference in Debye temperature. In this work, we show that even for two materials with similar Debye temperatures (Al/Si, Al/GaN), a substantial portion of phonons will transport inelastically across their interfaces at high temperatures, significantly enhancing interface thermal conductance. Moreover, we find that interface sharpness strongly affects phonon transport process. For atomically sharp interfaces, phonons are allowed to transport inelastically and interface thermal conductance linearly increases at high temperatures. With a diffuse interface, inelastic phonon transport diminishes. Our results provide new insights on phonon transport across interfaces and open up opportunities for engineering interface thermal conductance specifically for materials of relevance to microelectronics.
Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
National Natural Science Foundation of China; USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
2470902
Journal Information:
Nature Communications, Journal Name: Nature Communications Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 13; ISSN 2041-1723
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
Electronic devices
Science & Technology - Other Topics
Semiconductors