journal article·2024-02-14

Enhanced Thermal Boundary Conductance across GaN/SiC Interfaces with AlN Transition Layers

Ruiyang Li, Kamal Hussain, Michael E. Liao, Kenny Huynh, Md Shafkat Bin Hoque, Spencer Wyant, Yee Rui Koh, Zhihao Xu, Yekan Wang, Dorian P. Luccioni, Zhe Cheng, Jingjing Shi, Eungkyu Lee, Samuel Graham, Asegun Henry, Patrick E. Hopkins, Mark S. Goorsky, M.Asif Khan, Tengfei Luo

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Abstract

Heat dissipation plays a crucial role in the performance and reliability of high-power GaN-based electronics. While AlN transition layers are commonly employed in the heteroepitaxial growth of GaN-on-SiC substrates, concerns have been raised about their impact on thermal transport across GaN/SiC interfaces. In this study, we present experimental measurements of the thermal boundary conductance (TBC) across GaN/SiC interfaces with varying thicknesses of the AlN transition layer (ranging from 0 to 73 nm) at different temperatures. Our findings reveal that the addition of an AlN transition layer leads to a notable increase in the TBC of the GaN/SiC interface, particularly at elevated temperatures. Structural characterization techniques are employed to understand the influence of the AlN transition layer on the crystalline quality of the GaN layer and its potential effects on interfacial thermal transport. To gain further insights into the trend of TBC, we conduct molecular dynamics simulations using high-fidelity deep learning-based interatomic potentials, which reproduce the experimentally observed enhancement in TBC even for atomically perfect interfaces. These results suggest that the enhanced TBC facilitated by the AlN intermediate layer could result from a combination of improved crystalline quality at the interface and the "phonon bridge" effect provided by AlN that enhances the overlap between the vibrational spectra of GaN and SiC.
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Research context

OpenAlex topics: Thermal properties of materials · Silicon Carbide Semiconductor Technologies · Thermal Radiation and Cooling Technologies

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

Affiliations

Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556, United States

Department of Electrical Engineering, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina 29208, United States

Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, United States

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22904, United States

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States

George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, United States

Department of Electronic Engineering, Kyung Hee University, Yongin-si 17104, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22904, United States

Department of Physics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22904, United States

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556, United States

Center for Sustainable Energy of Notre Dame (ND Energy), University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556, United States

Funding

Office of Naval Research

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