Lattice Thermal Boundary Resistance

Luciano Colombo

;Aleandro Antidormi

2018-01-01

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Abstract

Control and modelling of thermal transport at the nanoscale has emerged either as a key issue in modern nanoscience or as a compelling demand for the ever- increasing miniaturization process in information technologies: here the thermal budget of nanodevices is basically ruled over by heat exchanges across interfaces, and the relevant physics is cast in terms of a thermal boundary resistance. In this chapter, we present a unified discussion about the fundamental knowledge developed in this framework. Starting from the most general thermodynamical description of an interface, where the driving force for heat transport is identified together with the actual location and thickness of the interface itself, we define what the thermal boundary resistance is in fact. We then delve into the most successful modelling approaches, based either on the phonon picture or on the atomistic picture. Adopting different assumptions and employing different implementation strategies, they offer a complementary description of the physi- cal mechanisms underlying thermal boundary resistance, and they provide useful computational protocols to predict its value in realistic systems.