Surface phonon-polaritons enhance thermal conduction in SiN nanomembranes

Abstract

Surface phonon-polaritons can carry energy on the surface of dielectric films and thus are expected to contribute to heat conduction. However, the contribution of surface phonon-polaritons (SPhPs) to thermal transport has not been experimentally demonstrated yet. In this work, we experimentally measure the effective in-plane thermal conductivity of amorphous silicon nitride membrane and show that it can indeed be increased by SPhPs significantly when the membrane thickness scales down. In particular, by heating up a thin membrane (<100 nm) from 300 to 800 K, the thermal conductivity increases twice due to SPhPs contribution.

Publication
arXiv 1908.01247
Sergei Gluchko
Sergei Gluchko
Researcher in nanophotonics

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