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Experimental Investigation of Size Effects on the Thermal Conductivity of Silicon-Germanium Alloy Thin Films
Open accessAbstract
We experimentally investigate the role of size effects and boundary scattering on the thermal conductivity of silicon-germanium alloys. The thermal conductivities of a series of epitaxially grown Si(1-x)Ge(x) thin films with varying thicknesses and compositions were measured with time-domain thermoreflectance. The resulting conductivities are found to be 3 to 5 times less than bulk values and vary strongly with film thickness. By examining these measured thermal conductivities in the context of a previously established model, it is shown that long wavelength phonons, known to be the dominant heat carriers in alloy films, are strongly scattered by the film boundaries, thereby inducing the observed reductions in heat transport. These results are then generalized to silicon-germanium systems of various thicknesses and compositions; we find that the thermal conductivities of Si(1-x)Ge(x) superlattices are ultimately limited by finite size effects and sample size rather than periodicity or alloying. This demonstrates the strong influence of sample size in alloyed nanosystems. Therefore, if a comparison is to be made between the thermal conductivities of superlattices and alloys, the total sample thicknesses of each must be considered.
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“Over the past two decades, ultrafast laser-based time-domain thermoreflectance (TDTR) has emerged and evolved as a reliable, powerful, and versatile technique to measure the thermal properties of a wide range of bulk and thin film materials and their interfaces.”
From Tutorial: Time-domain thermoreflectance (TDTR) for thermal property characterization of bulk and thin film materials (2018) · cites this paper as [29]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Cheaito, R., Duda, J. C., Beechem, T. E., Hattar, K., Ihlefeld, J. F., Medlin, D. L., Rodriguez, M. A., Campion, M. J., Piekos, E. S., & Hopkins, P. E.
- Affiliations
- University of Virginia (US)
- Sandia National Laboratories (US)
- Sandia National Laboratories California (US)
- ORCID
- Venue
- Physical Review Letters
- Publisher
- American Physical Society (APS)
- Published
- 2012-11-08
- Volume
- 109
- Issue
- 19
- Pages
- 195901-195901
- ISSN
- 0031-9007 (ISSN-L)
- 1079-7114
- OpenAlex
- W2017999182
- Cited by
- 175
- References
- 30
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 18 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 21 · 2017: 10 · 2016: 18 · 2015: 18 · 2014: 10 · 2013: 12
- FWCI
- 5.89
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- orcid.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Physical Review Letters (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Materials Science › Materials Chemistry › Thermal properties of materials
- Physical Sciences › Materials Science › Materials Chemistry › Advanced Thermoelectric Materials and Devices
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Civil and Structural Engineering › Thermal Radiation and Cooling Technologies
- Keywords
- silicon-germanium alloys, thin films, thermal conductivity, size effect, boundary scattering, phonon scattering, long-wavelength phonons, epitaxial growth, superlattices, film thickness dependence, sample size effects, nanoscale heat transfer
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