Annealing Cycle Dependence of Thermal Conductivity for Si-Ge-Au Thin Film Analyzed by Thermal Microscopy

The thermal effusivity of a Si-Ge-Au thin film was measured using a thermal microscope. A thin-film sample with sixty-seven artificial intervals each comprising Si (2.0 nm)/Au-doped Ge (2.5 nm) was prepared and annealed more than 20 times. The dependence of the thermal conductivity of the film on the number of annealing cycles was determined using the obtained experimental thermal effusivity data, bulk density, and specific heat capacity. The film thickness (~300 nm) was greater than the thermal diffusion length of the samples. The thermal conductivity of the Si-Ge-Au thin film was satisfactory considering the number of annealing cycles. Thus, we elucidated the annealing effect of thermal conductivity for the Si-Ge-Au thin film.