Effect of phonon dispersion on thermal conduction across Si/Ge interfaces1 Dhruv Singh Jayathi Y. Murthy* Timothy S. Fisher School of Mechanical Engineering and Birck Nanotechnology Center, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN -47907, USA ABSTRACT We report finite-volume simulations of the phonon Boltzmann transport equation (BTE) for heat conduction across the heterogeneous interfaces in SiGe superlattices. The diffuse mismatch model incorporating phonon dispersion and polarization is implemented over a wide range of Knudsen numbers. The results indicate that the thermal conductivity of a Si/Ge superlattice is much lower than that of the constitutive bulk materials for superlattice periods in the submicron regime. We report results for effective thermal conductivity of various material volume fractions and superlattice periods. Details of the non-equilibrium energy exchange between optical and acoustic phonons that originate from the mismatch of phonon spectra in silicon and germanium are delineated for the first time. Conditions are identified for which this effect can produce significantly more thermal resistance than that due to boundary scattering of phonons. * Corresponding Author, e-mail:
[email protected] 1Paper presented at the 2009 ASME/Pacific Rim Technical Conference and Exhibition on Packaging and Integration of Electronic and Photonic Systems, MEMS and NEMS (InterPACK ‟09), San Francisco, CA, Jul 19-23, 2009. 1 I. INTRODUCTION During the past decade, there has been growing interest in developing nanostructured materials such as composites and superlattices for use in thermoelectrics, thermal interface materials and in macroelectronics [1-5]. It has long been known that the thermal and electrical transport properties of isolated nanostructures such as thin films, nanowires and nanotubes often exhibit significant deviations from their bulk counterparts [6-8].