Built-in-polarization field effect on intrinsic and extrinsic thermal conductivities of AlN/GaN/AlN quantum well

Abstract

In this paper, the effect of built-in-polarization field on lattice thermal conductivity of AlN/GaN/AlN quantum well (QW) has been theoretically investigated. The built-in-polarization field at the hetero-interface of GaN/AlN modifies elastic constant, phonon velocity and Debye temperature of GaN QW. The relaxation time of acoustic phonons (AP) in various scattering processes in GaN with and without built-in-polarization field has been computed at room temperature. The result shows that combined relaxation time of AP is enhanced by built-in-polarization field and implies a longer mean free path. The revised intrinsic and extrinsic thermal conductivities of GaN have been estimated. The theoretical analysis shows that up to a certain temperature the polarization field acts as negative effect and reduces the thermal conductivities. However, after this temperature both thermal conductivities are significantly contributed by polarization field. This gives the idea of temperature dependence of polarization effect which signifies the pyro-electric character of GaN. The intrinsic thermal conductivity at room temperature for with and without polarization mechanism is found to be 491 Wm-1K-1and 409 Wm-1K-1, respectively i.e., 20% enhancement. However, the extrinsic thermal conductivity at room temperature for with and without polarization mechanism is found to be 280 Wm-1K-1and 245 Wm-1K-1, respectively i.e., 13% enhancement. The method we have developed may be taken into account during the simulation of heat transport in optoelectronic nitride devices to minimize the self-heating processes and in polarization engineering strategies to optimize the thermoelectric performance of GaN alloys.