Heat Transport in Nanoscale Heterosystems : A Numerical and Analytical Study

The numerical integration of the heat diffusion equation applied to the Bi/Si-heterosystem is presented for times larger than the characteristic time of electron-phonon coupling. By comparing the numerical results to experimental data, it is shown that the thermal boundary resistance of the interface can be directly determined from the characteristic decay time of the observed surface cooling, and an elaborate simulation of the temporal surface temperature evolution can be omitted. Additionally, the numerical solution shows that the substrate temperature only negligibly varies with time and can be considered constant. In this case, an analytical solution can be found. A thorough examination of the analytical solution shows that the surface cooling behavior strongly depends on the initial temperature distribution which can be used to study energy transport properties at short delays after the excitation.