Suppression of thermal conductivity in InxGa1−xN alloys by nanometer-scale disorder

Abstract

We have systematically measured the room-temperature thermal conductivity of epitaxial layers of InxGa1−xN alloys with 15 different Indium compositions ranging from 0.08 to 0.98 by time-domain thermoreflectance method. The data are compared to the estimates of the strength of phonon scattering by cation disorder. The thermal conductivity is in good agreement with the theoretical modeling results based on the mass difference for In-rich (x > 0.9) and Ga-rich (x < 0.2) compositions. At intermediate compositions (0.2 < x < 0.9), the thermal conductivity is strongly suppressed below the values expected for homogeneous alloys. We attribute this suppression of thermal conductivity to phonon scattering by nanometer-scale compositional inhomogeneities in alloys.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Mar 25, 2013
Source ID
10.1063/1.4798838

Entities

People

  • A. X. Levander
  • B. Liu
  • B. N. Pantha
  • D. Fu
  • David G. Cahill
  • H. X. Jiang
  • I. Ferguson
  • J. Wu
  • J. Y. Lin
  • N. Lu
  • Rui Zhang
  • T. Tong
  • W. J. Schaff

Organizations

  • Cornell University
  • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
  • Nanjing University
  • National Science Foundation
  • Office of Naval Research
  • Texas Tech University
  • University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign
  • University of North Carolina

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Materials science

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