Measurement of Quasi-ballistic Heat Transport Across Nanoscale Interfaces Using Ultrafast Coherent Soft X-ray Beams

Book excerpt: Understanding heat transport on nanoscale dimensions is important for fundamental advances in nanoscience, as well as for practical applications such as thermal management in nano-electronics, thermoelectric devices, photovoltaics, nanomanufacturing, as well as nanoparticle thermal therapy. Here we report the first time-resolved measurements of heat transport across nanostructured interfaces. We observe the transition from a diffusive to a ballistic thermal transport regime, with a corresponding increase in the interface resistivity for line widths smaller than the phonon mean free path in the substrate. Resistivities more than three times higher than the bulk value are measured for the smallest line widths of 65 nm. Our findings are relevant to the modeling and design of heat transport in nanoscale engineered systems, including nanoelectronics, photovoltaics and thermoelectric devices.