Amorphous SiO2 (a-SiO2) thin films are widely used in integrated circuits (ICs) due to their excellent thermal stability and insulation properties. In this paper, the thermal conductivity of a-SiO2 thin film was systematically investigated using non-equilibrium molecular dynamics (NEMD) simulations. In addition to the size effect and the temperature effect for thermal conductivity of a-SiO2 thin films, the effect of defects induced thermal conductivity tuning was also examined. It was found that the thermal conductivity of a-SiO2 thin films is insensitive to the temperature from −55 °C to 150 °C. Nevertheless, in the range of the thickness in this work, the thermal conductivity of the crystalline SiO2 (c-SiO2) thin films conforms to the T−α with the exponent range from −0.12 to −0.37, and the thinner films are less sensitive to temperature. Meanwhile, the thermal conductivity of a-SiO2 with thickness beyond 4.26 nm has no significant size effect, which is consistent with the experimental results. Compared with c-SiO2 thin film, the thermal conductivity of a-SiO2 is less sensitive to defects. Particularly, the effect of spherical void defects on the thermal conductivity of a-SiO2 is followed by Coherent Potential model, which is helpful for the design of low-K material based porous a-SiO2 thin film in microelectronics.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.