Thermal contact resistance across nanoscale silicon dioxide and silicon interface

Silicon dioxide and silicon (SiO2/Si) interface plays a very important role in semiconductor industry. However, at nanoscale, its interfacial thermal properties have not been well understood so far. In this paper, we systematically study the interfacial thermal resistance (Kapitza resistance) of a heterojunction composed of amorphous silicon dioxide and crystalline silicon by using molecular dynamics simulations. Numerical results have shown that Kapitza resistance at SiO2/Si interface depends on the interfacial coupling strength remarkably. In the weak interfacial coupling limit, Kapitza resistance depends on both the detailed interfacial structure and the length of the heterojunction, showing large fluctuation among different samples. In contrast, it is almost insensitive to the detailed interfacial structure or the length of the heterojunction in the strong interfacial coupling limit, giving rise to a nearly constant value around 0.9 x 10(-9) m(2)KW(-1) at room temperature. Moreover, the temperature dependent Kapitza resistance in the strong interfacial coupling limit has also been examined. Our study provides useful guidance to the thermal management and heat dissipation across nanoscale SiO2/Si interface, in particular, for the design of silicon nanowire based nano electronics and photonics devices. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4754513]