Boosting thermal conductivity by surface plasmon polaritons propagating along a thin Ti film

TL;DR

This paper experimentally demonstrates that surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) propagating along a thin Ti film can significantly enhance in-plane thermal conductivity, offering a new method for heat dissipation in microelectronics.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental validation of boosted thermal conduction via SPPs along a thin metal film, with quantification of the conductivity enhancement.

Findings

SPPs can propagate over centimeter distances on a thin Ti film.

A 100-nm-thick Ti film shows approximately 35% higher in-plane thermal conductivity than bulk Ti.

SPPs can be employed for effective heat dissipation in microelectronic devices.

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate a boosted in-plane thermal conduction by surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) propagating along a thin Ti film on a glass substrate. Owing to a lossy nature of metal, SPPs can propagate over centimeter-scale distance even with a supported metal film, and resulting ballistic heat conduction can be quantitatively validated. Further, for a 100-nm-thick Ti film on glass substrate, a significant enhancement of in-plane thermal conductivity compared to bulk value ($\sim 35\%$) is experimentally shown. This study will provide a new avenue to employ SPPs for heat dissipation along a supported thin film, which can be readily applied to mitigate hot-spot issues in microelectronics.