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A numerical modeling study based on 3D finite element method (FEM) simulation and 1D analytical solutions has been carried out to evaluate the capabilities of two ac methods for measuring in-plane thermal conductivity of thin film deposited on the back of a suspended SiNx membrane setup. Two parallel metal strips are present on the top of the dielectric membrane. One strip (S1) serves as both heater and thermometer, while another one (S2) acts as thermometer only. For a modified phase shift (MPS) method, it is crucial to extract the in-plane thermal diffusivity from the phase shift of the temperature oscillation on S2. It was found that the frequency window for carrying out the data fitting became narrower as the in-plane thermal diffusivity of the composite membrane (${\alpha_{\parallel ,C}}$) increased, primarily due to the failure of the semi-infinite width assumption in the low frequency region. To ensure the validity of the method, the upper limit of ${\alpha_{\parallel ,C}}$ should not exceed ~1.8$ \times $10-5 m2 s-1 for the specific membrane dimension under consideration (1$\times $1 mm2). On the other hand, inspired by a modified Angstrom method proposed by Zhu recently, we suggest a new data reduction methodology which takes advantage of the phase shift on both S1 and S2 as well as the amplitude on S1. Based on the simulation results, it is expected that the non-ideality associated with the three observables may be at least partially cancelled out.Therefore, the frequency window selection for carrying out the data fitting is not sensitive to the magnitude of ${\alpha_{\parallel ,C}}$. For typical specimen films whose in-plane thermal conductivity ranges from 0.84 W m-1 K-1 to 50 W m-1 K-1, the method proposed here yields a theoretical measurement uncertainty of less than 5%., Comment: 34 pages, 9 figures

Quantifying formidable multiple coupling effects involved in Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is a prerequisite for accurate design of SERS probes with superior detection limit and uniformity which are the targets for trace substance detection. Here, combining theory and experiments on novel 3D periodic Au/SiO2 hybrid nanogrids, we successfully develop a generalized methodology of accurately designing high performance SERS probes. Structural parameters and symmetry, Au roughness, and polarization are quantitatively correlated to intrinsic electromagnetic field (EMF) enhancements from surface plasmon polariton (SPP), localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR), optical standing wave and their couplings theoretically, which is experimentally verified. The hexagonal SERS probes optimized by the methodology successfully detect 5*10^-11 M Hg ions in water, and 2.5*10^-11 M R6G with 40 times improvement of detection limit, an enhancement factor of 3.4*10^8 and uniformity of 5.56%, which results from the extra Au roughness - independent 144% contribution of LSPR effects excited by SPP interference waves as secondary sources, beyond the conventional recognization. This study opens up a pioneering way not only for providing the generalized design principles of SERS probe structures with high performance but for accurately designing their structures with particular purposes such as greatly improved detection limit and uniformity which are very significant for trace substance detection.

A modified AC method based on micro-fabricated heater and resistive thermometers has been applied to measure the thermopower of microscale samples. A sinusoidal current with frequency {\omega} is passed to the heater to generate an oscillatory temperature difference across the sample at a frequency 2{\omega}, which simultaneously induces an AC thermoelectric voltage, also at the frequency 2{\omega}. A key step of the method is to extract amplitude and phase of the oscillatory temperature difference by probing the AC temperature variation at each individual thermometer. The sign of the thermopower is determined by examining the phase difference between the oscillatory temperature difference and the AC thermoelectric voltage. The technique has been compared with the popular DC method by testing both n-type and p-type thin film samples. Both methods yielded consistent results, which verified the reliability of the newly proposed AC method., Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures, 1 table