Three-sensor 3ω-2ω method for the simultaneous measurement of thermal conductivity and thermal boundary resistance in film-on-substrate heterostructures

Abstract

Solid heterostructures composed of substrates and epitaxial films are extensively used in advanced technologies, and their thermophysical properties fundamentally determine the performance, efficiency, and reliability of the corresponding devices. However, an experimental method that is truly appropriate for the thermophysical property measurement of solid heterostructures is still lacking. To this end, a three-sensor 3ω-2ω method is proposed, which can simultaneously measure the thermal conductivities of the film and the substrate, along with the film-substrate thermal boundary resistance (TBR) in a single solid heterostructure without any reference samples, showing broad applicability for miscellaneous heterostructures with film thickness ranging from 100 nm to 10 μm. In this method, three parallel metal sensors with unequal widths and distances conforming to guidelines for the three-sensor layout design are fabricated on the sample surface, in which the two outer sensors serve as heaters and the middle sensor as a detector. The respective 3ω signals of the two heaters and the 2ω signal of the detector are measured, and then the thermophysical properties of the sample are fitted within 3D finite element simulations. To verify this method, two typical wide bandgap semiconductor heterojunctions, i.e., GaN on SiC (#SiC) and GaN on Si (#Si) with ∼2.3 μm GaN epilayers, are measured. The thermal conductivity of the GaN film, the thermal conductivities of the SiC and Si substrates, and the GaN/substrate TBRs are derived, exhibiting good agreement with the literature. The proposed method will provide a comprehensive solution for the thermophysical property measurements of various solid heterostructures.