Temperature dependent thermal conductivity of Si/SiC amorphous multilayer films

The cross-plane thermal conductivity of 22 nm period Si/SiC amorphous multilayer films deposited by magnetron sputtering and measured using a differential 3 ω method was found to decrease from 2.0 W/mK at 300 K to 1.1 W/mK at 80 K. Structural disorder in each of the constituent layers of the amorphous multilayer films was confirmed by high resolution transmission electron microscopy. Estimations of the relative contributions of interface and intrinsic layer thermal resistance based on microscopic phonon transport models indicate that mean free path reductions induced by the structural disorder within the multilayer films are responsible for the observed experimental trends.