Simultaneous Evaluation of Heat Capacity and In-plane Thermal Conductivity of Nanocrystalline Diamond Thin Films

Abstract

ABSTRACT As wide bandgap electronic devices have continued to advance in both size reduction and power handling capabilities, heat dissipation has become a significant concern. To mitigate this, chemical vapor deposited (CVD) diamond has been demonstrated as an effective solution for thermal management of these devices by directly growing onto the transistor substrate. A key aspect of power and radio frequency (RF) electronic devices involves transient switching behavior, which highlights the importance of understanding the temperature dependence of a material’s heat capacity and thermal conductivity when modeling and predicting a devices electro-thermal response. Due to the complicated microstructure near the interface between CVD diamond and electronic material, it is difficult to measure both properties simultaneously. In this work, we use time-domain thermoreflectance (TDTR) to simultaneously measure the in-plane thermal conductivity and heat capacity of a 1-µm-thick CVD diamond film via multi-frequency analysis. We obtain temperature dependent thermal properties by using the pump beam to heat the sample according to increasing power. This mitigates the need for a more complicated setup using a thermal stage but has limited upper temperature boundaries based on the sample geometry and thermal properties. The results show that the in-plane thermal conductivity varied slightly with an average of 103 W/m-K over a temperature range of 302–327 K, while the specific heat capacity has a strong temperature dependence over the same range and compares well with heat capacity data of natural diamond in literature.