Prediction and Measurement of the Thermal Conductivity of Amorphous Dielectric Layers

Abstract

Thermal conduction in amorphous dielectric layers affects the performance and reliability of electronic circuits. This work analyzes the influence of boundary scattering on the effective thermal conductivity for conduction normal to amorphous silicon dioxide layers, kn,eff. At 10 K, the predictions agree well with previously reported data for deposited layers, which show a strong reduction of kn,eff compared to the bulk conductivity, kbulk. A steady-state technique measures kn,eff near room temperature of silicon dioxide layers fabricated using oxygen-ion implantation (SIMOX). The predictions and the SIMOX data, which agree closely with kbulk, show that boundary scattering is not important at room temperature. Lower than bulk conductivities of silicon dioxide layers measured elsewhere near room temperature must be caused by interfacial layers or differences in microstructure or stoichiometry.

Thermal conduction normal to diamond-silicon boundaries

“…Another possibility is that a highly imperfect region near the silicon-diamond interface, such as the ϳ100 Å thick amorphous silicon/carbon region observed in electron micrographs, 20 yields a large local volume resistance. This resistance can be estimated to be roughly 10 Ϫ8 m 2 K W Ϫ1 , 16 which is consistent with the data reported here. In practice, a highly localized volume resistance near a boundary is indistinguishable from the boundary resistance, such that it is appropriate to define the sum of these as an effective boundary resistance.…”

“…The steadystate parallel-microbridge method 15 was adapted to measure thermal resistances as small as 5ϫ10 Ϫ8 m 2 K Ϫ1 W Ϫ1 for conduction normal to thin dielectric layers at room temperature. 16,17 Smaller resistances can be measured using transient methods, which diminish the heated volume and therefore the uncertainty due to unnecessary temperature rise in the substrate. Laser heating and laser reflectance thermometry measured thermal resistances using time scales as short as a few hundred nanoseconds.…”

Thermal transport in nano-porous insulation of aerogel: Factors, models and outlook

“…Considering both lattice vibration [118] and phonon scattering on the interfaces between the linked particles [119], Coquard et al obtained the effective thermal conductivity of connected silica particles by numerically solving the phonon Boltzmann transport equation and used it as the solid phase thermal conductivity in Eq. (62).…”

Measurement of thermal conductivity of buried oxides of silicon-on-insulator wafers fabricated by separation by implantation of oxygen technology

“…3 Tenbroek et al 1 used a series of four-terminal resistors with different widths to measure the thermal conductivity of the buried oxide of SOI devices. The method they used was quite complicated, and assumes that the temperature dependence of the resistor is the same both for the large current bias ͑high power biased͒ case and for that with negligible bias current ͑zero power dissipation͒.…”