Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T07:19:12.185Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Frequency-Dependent Thermal Conductivity in Time Domain Thermoreflectance Analysis of Thin Films

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2011

Gilles Pernot*
Affiliation:
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, U.S.A.
Hélène Michel
Affiliation:
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, U.S.A.
Bjorn Vermeersch
Affiliation:
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, U.S.A.
Peter Burke
Affiliation:
Materials Department, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, U.S.A.
H. Lu
Affiliation:
Materials Department, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, U.S.A.
Jean-Michel Rampnoux
Affiliation:
LOMA, Université de Bordeaux 1, 33405 Talence, France.
Stefan Dilhaire
Affiliation:
LOMA, Université de Bordeaux 1, 33405 Talence, France.
Younès Ezzahri
Affiliation:
Institut Pprime, CNRS-Université de Poitiers-ENSMA, 86022 Poitiers, France.
Arthur Gossard
Affiliation:
Materials Department, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, U.S.A.
Ali Shakouri
Affiliation:
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, U.S.A.
Get access

Abstract

Over the past three decades, ultrashort laser pulses have been demonstrated to be a very powerful tool to investigate materials properties at the nanoscale. A key driving force is the high-time resolution required to study heat transfer across interfaces and in thin films. The Time-Domain Thermoreflectance (TDTR) is now widely used. This optical technique offers an interesting alternative to electrical approaches such as the 3ω method. We present a complete study of the TDTR signals. We investigate the influence of the modulation frequency on the measured signals and we show how this experimental parameter could be set to enhance or reduce the sensitivity to a specific thermal parameter. The dependence of the measured “apparent” thermal conductivity of the thin film as a function of the modulation frequency is discussed. Results are applied to investigate thermal properties of a series of InGaAs samples with embedded ErAs nanoparticles.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

1. Koh, Y. K., Singer, S., Kim, W., Zide, J., and Lu, H., J. App. Phys. (2009).Google Scholar
2. Pernot, G., Stoffel, M., Savić, I., Pezzoli, F., Nature Materials 9, 491 (2010).Google Scholar
3. Koh, Y. K. and Cahill, D. G., Phys. Rev. B 76, 15 (2007).Google Scholar
4. Volz, S., Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 14 (2001).Google Scholar
5. Capinski, W. S., Maris, H. J., Ruf, T., Cardona, M., Ploog, K., and Katzer, D., Phys. Rev. B 59, 81058113 (1999).Google Scholar
6. Schmidt, A. J., Chen, X., and Chen, G., Rev. Sci. Instrum. 79, 114902 (2008).Google Scholar
7. Cahill, D. G., Rev. Sci. Instrum. 75, 5119 (2004).Google Scholar
8. Cahill, D. G., Goodson, K. E., and Majumdar, A., J. Heat Transf. 124, 223 (2002).Google Scholar
9. Maillet, D., Andre, S., Batsale, J.-C., and Degiovanni, A., Thermal Quadrupoles: Solving the Heat Equation Through Integral Transforms (John Wiley & Sons Inc, 2000).Google Scholar
10. Gundrum, B., Cahill, D. G., and Averback, R., Phys. Rev. B 72, 15 (2005).Google Scholar
11. Taketoshi, N., Baba, T., and Ono, A., Meas. Sci. & Technol. 12, 2064 (2001).Google Scholar