Probing Growth-Induced Anisotropic Thermal Transport in CVD Diamond Membranes by Multi-frequency and Multi-spot-size Time-Domain Thermoreflectance

TL;DR

This study uses advanced thermoreflectance techniques to measure and analyze the 3D anisotropic thermal conductivity of CVD diamond membranes, revealing inhomogeneous heat conduction properties crucial for high-power electronics thermal management.

Contribution

It introduces a multi-frequency and multi-spot-size TDTR method to experimentally determine the in-plane and cross-plane thermal conductivities of CVD diamond membranes, accounting for their inhomogeneous structure.

Findings

Identified a depth-dependent thermal conductivity gradient in the membrane.

Measured in-plane and cross-plane thermal conductivities separately.

Provided insights into heat conduction inhomogeneity in CVD diamond membranes.

Abstract

The maximum output power of GaN-based high-electron mobility transistors is limited by high channel temperature induced by localized self-heating which degrades device performance and reliability. With generated heat fluxes within these devices reaching magnitude close to ten times of that at the sun surface, chemical vapor deposition (CVD) diamond is an attractive candidate to aid in the extraction of this heat in order to keep the operating temperatures of these high power electronics as low as possible. Due to the observed inhomogeneous structure, CVD diamond membranes exhibit a 3D anisotropic thermal conductivity which may result in significantly different cooling performance from expected in a given application. In this work, time domain thermoreflectance (TDTR) is used to measure the thermal properties of an 11.8-{\mu}m CVD diamond membrane from its nucleation side. Starting with a spot size diameter larger than the thickness of the membrane, measurements are made at various modulation frequencies from 1.2 MHz to 11.6 MHz to tune the heat penetration depth, and subsequently the part of diamond sampled by TDTR. We divide the membrane into ten sublayers and assume isotropic thermal conductivity in each sublayer. From this, we observe a 2D gradient of the depth-dependent thermal conductivity for this membrane. By measuring the same region with a smaller spot size at multiple frequencies, the in-plane and cross-plane thermal conductivity are extracted respectively. Through this use of multiple spot sizes and modulation frequencies, the 3D anisotropic thermal conductivity of CVD diamond membrane is experimentally obtained by fitting the experimental data to a thermal model. This work provides insight toward an improved understanding of heat conduction inhomogeneity in CVD polycrystalline diamond membrane that is important for applications of thermal management of high power electronics.