Tuning the anisotropic thermal transport in {110}-silicon membranes with surface resonances

Abstract

Understanding the thermal transport in nanostructures has important applications in fields such as thermoelectric energy conversion, novel computing and heat dissipation. Using nonhomogeneous equilibrium molecular dynamic simulations, we studied the thermal transport in pristine and resonant Si membranes bounded with {110} facets. The break of symmetry by surfaces led to the anisotropic thermal transport with the thermal conductivity along the [110]-direction to be 1.78 times larger than that along the [100]-direction in the pristine structure. In the pristine membranes, the mean free path of phonons along both the [100]-and [110]-directions could reach up to ∼100 µm. Such modes with ultra-long MFP could be effectively hindered by surface resonant pillars. As a result, the thermal conductivity was significantly reduced in resonant structures, with 87.0% and 80.8% reductions along the [110]-and [100]-directions, respectively. The thermal transport anisotropy was also reduced, with the ratio κ110/κ100 decreasing to 1.23. For both the pristine and resonant membranes, the thermal transport was mainly conducted by the in-plane modes. The current work could provide further insights in understanding the thermal transport in thin membranes and resonant structures.