Faculty Research and Creative Activity

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

January 2010

Abstract

aip Publishers Publications Topics | Librarians Authors Your access is provided by: Eastern Illinois University Register to create your user account, or sign in if you have an existing account Additional sign in Sign in via Shibboleth/Athens My cart Export citations Add to my favorites Recommend to library Subscribe to email alerts Submit an article Reprints & Permissions Subscribe to RSS Access Key Free Content Open Access Content Subscribed Content Free Trial Content Home > Publishers > AIP Publishing > Journal of Applied Physics > Volume 108, Issue 3 > Article banner image F Lattice thermal conductivity of freestanding gallium nitride nanowires Download PDF Jie Zou1,a) + View Affiliations a) Electronic mail: jzou@eiu.edu. J. Appl. Phys. 108, 034324 (2010); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3463358 Previous Article Table of Contents Next Article Back to Search Results facebook twitter Share this page separator email print this page Abstract Full Text References (28) Cited By (8) Data & Media Metrics Related We report detailed calculations of the lattice thermal conductivity of freestanding gallium nitride(GaN)nanowires with diameters ranging from 20 to 140 nm. Results are compared with experimental data on GaNnanowires grown by thermal chemical vapor deposition(CVD). Calculations are based on the Boltzmann transport equation and take into account the change in the nonequilibrium phonon distribution in the case of diffuse scattering at the surfaces. Phonon dispersion relation is obtained in the elastic continuum approximation for each given nanowire. For valid comparisons with the experimental data, simulations are performed with a dopant concentration and impurity profile characteristic of thermal CVDGaNnanowires. Our results show that the room-temperature thermal conductivity of the nanowires has very low values, ranging from 6.74 W/m K at 20 nm to 16.4 W/m K at 140 nm. The obtained results are in excellent agreement with the experimental data. We have also demonstrated that in addition to impurity scattering, boundary scattering, and phonon confinement, the change in the nonequilibrium phonon distribution leads to a further reduction in the thermal conductivity of the nanowires and has to be taken into account in the calculations. Our conclusion is different from that of an earlier study which attributed the very low thermal conductivity to the unusually large mass-difference scattering in the nanowires.

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