Effects of contact shape on ballistic phonon transport in semiconductor nanowires

Abstract

We study the effects of contact shape on ballistic phonon transport in semiconductor nanowires at low temperatures using an approximative scalar model of continuum elasticity. Five different contacts connected to two semiconductor nanowires with different transverse widths are discussed. Numerical results show that the contact shape acts as an ‘acoustic impedance adaptor’, playing a crucial role on the ballistic phonon transmission and thermal conductance. The phonon coupling in the contacts with certain length facilitates ballistic phonon transmission compared to the abrupt interface, in which the phonon scattering is the strongest. It is found that the more the contact is abrupt, the smaller the thermal conductance is. The catenoidal contact rather than the abrupt interface is also the competitive candidate to obtain bigger thermal conductance. These results indicate that choosing an appropriate contact shape is one of the most critical factors to accurately measure the thermal conductance with a very high precision and reliability in different temperature ranges at low temperatures.