Thermal Conductivity and Interfacial Thermal Resistance in Bilayered Nanofilms by Nonequilibrium Molecular Dynamics Simulations

Abstract

A nonequilibrium molecular dynamics study of the cross-plane thermal conductivity and interfacial thermal resistance of nanoscale bilayered films is presented. The films under study are composed of argon and another material that is identical to argon except for its atomic mass. The results show that a large temperature jump occurs at the interface and that the interfacial thermal resistance plays an important role in heat conduction for the whole films. The cross-plane thermal conductivity is dependent on the average temperature. The interfacial thermal resistance is found to be dependent apparently on the atomic mass ratio of the two materials and the temperature, but to be independent of the film thickness. A linear relationship is observed between the reciprocal of the cross-plane thermal conductivity and that of the film thickness with the film thickness between 5.4 nm and 64.9 nm, which is in good agreement with results in the literature for a single film.