Hydrodynamic thermal transport in silicon at temperatures ranging from 100 to 300 K

Abstract

Energy dissipation in current microelectronic devices is an inefficient process due to its non-Fourier behavior. By using thermoreflectance imaging, the authors measure the temperature distribution around nanoscale heaters of different sizes and shapes on a silicon substrate to test state-of-the-art modeling. The results indicate that hydrodynamiclike thermal transport equations successfully predict the local system response at temperatures ranging from 100 to 300 K. This is contrasted with kinetic interpretations based on the suppression of long mean free path phonons, which are shown not to become manifest in the experiments.