Absence of coupled thermal interfaces in Al2O3/Ni/Al2O3 sandwich structure.

Sandwich structures of aluminum oxide, nickel, and aluminum oxide films are fabricated by atomic layer deposition to study thermal interfacial resistance between a metal and a dielectric material and the interfacial coupling effect across a thin metal layer. Thermal resistance of a thin nickel layer as well as two interfaces is measured using the 3ω method. Experimental results show interfacial resistance between nickel and aluminum oxide to be 6.8 × 10^-3mm² K=W at 300 K, with a weak dependence on the metal thickness and temperature. A two-temperature model and a detailed diffuse mismatch model have been used to estimate interfacial resistance theoretically, and the results agree reasonably well with experiments. Estimations from the two temperature model indicate that in the overall thermal interfacial resistance, the phonon-phonon interfacial resistance dominates over the resistance due to the electron-phonon coupling effect and inside the metal layer. Also, the phonon-phonon interfacial resistance does not vary as the metal layer thickness decreases below the electron-phonon cooling length, indicating that the two adjacent interfaces are not thermally coupled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]