Thermal Contact Resistance Across Nanoscale Silicon Dioxide and Silicon Interface

TL;DR

This study uses molecular dynamics simulations to analyze how interfacial thermal resistance at nanoscale SiO₂/Si interfaces varies with coupling strength, structure, and temperature, informing better thermal management in nanoelectronics.

Contribution

It systematically investigates the dependence of Kapitza resistance on interfacial coupling strength, structure, and temperature at nanoscale SiO₂/Si interfaces using molecular dynamics.

Findings

Kapitza resistance varies significantly with interfacial coupling strength.

In weak coupling, resistance depends on structure and length, showing fluctuations.

In strong coupling, resistance is nearly constant around 0.9×10^{-9} m^2K/W.

Abstract

Silicon dioxide and silicon (SiO$_{2}$/Si) interface plays a very important role in semiconductor industry. However, at nanoscale, its interfacial thermal properties haven't been well understood so far. In this paper, we systematically study the interfacial thermal resistance (Kapitza resistance) of a heterojunction composed of amorphous silicon dioxide and crystalline silicon by using molecular dynamics simulations. Numerical results have shown that Kapitza resistance at SiO$_{2}$/Si interface depends on the interfacial coupling strength remarkably. In the weak interfacial coupling limit, Kapitza resistance depends on both the detailed interfacial structure and the length of the heterojunction, showing large fluctuation among different samples. In contrast, it is almost insensitive to the detailed interfacial structure or the length of the heterojunction in the strong interfacial coupling limit, giving rise to a nearly constant value around 0.9 $\times10^{-9}$ m$^{2}$KW$^{-1}$ at room temperature. Moreover, the temperature dependent Kapitza resistance in the strong interfacial coupling limit has also been examined. Our study provides useful guidance to the thermal management and heat dissipation across nanoscale SiO$_{2}$/Si interface, in particular for the design of silicon nanowire based nano electronics and photonics devices.