Thermal Boundary Resistance at an Epitaxially Perfect Interface of Thin Films

Abstract At the interfaces in an ideal epitaxial superlattice, it may be expected that there exists no thermal boundary resistance (TBR) due to thermal motions because the interfaces are atomically perfect. However, recent researches reported that the TBR still exists at the epitaxial interfaces of superlattices. Our previous study suggested the model, which was named as the C-M model, to predict accurately the TBR at an interface by considering a mass ratio between two species. In this study, we incorporated the effect due to an intermolecular potential well ratio into the previous model. The updated C-M model was based on the classical theory of a wave reflection and transmission, and provided an excellent agreement with the results of the molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. Furthermore, it suggests no TBR condition at an interface in superlattices.