Investigation of interfacial thermal resistance of bi-layer nanofilms by nonequilibrium molecular dynamics

Interfacial thermal resistance (ITR) in bi-layer nanofilms is investigated by nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulation. The relationships among ITR, interfacial temperature, film thickness, heat flux direction and film materials are investigated. The ITR is found to become lower with increasing interfacial temperature, and film thickness has no obvious influence on ITR in the range of the simulation layer thickness. ITR is found to be dependent on the heat flux direction and layer materials. Analyses of heat flux direction and layer materials based on phonon density of states (DOS) indicate that the mismatch of DOS of each layer is the main cause of interfacial resistance and the frequency distribution of DOS also affects interfacial resistance.