Effect of dislocation density on thermal boundary conductance across GaSb/GaAs interfaces

We report on the thermal boundary conductance across structurally-variant GaSb/GaAs interfaces characterized by different dislocations densities, as well as variably-rough Al/GaSb interfaces. The GaSb/GaAs structures are epitaxially grown using both interfacial misfit (IMF) and non-IMF techniques. We measure the thermal boundary conductance from 100 to 450 K with time-domain thermoreflectance. The thermal boundary conductance across the GaSb/GaAs interfaces decreases with increasing strain dislocation density. We develop a model for interfacial transport at structurally-variant interfaces in which phonon propagation and scattering parallels photon attenuation. We find that this model describes the measured thermal boundary conductances well. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3581041]