Monte Carlo Simulation of Phononic like Silicon Nanostructures—Comparison to Experiments and Models
Résumé
Recent developments of elaboration techniques allow the design of low dimension systems and nanostructured materials with periodic pattern. Among them, phononic crystals structures (PnC) drew the attention of several research groups due to their ability to strongly hinder heat transport and possibly to control heat fluxes. Potential applications in new technologies are numerous and there is a need of understanding the physic of phonon transport in such devices.
In the present work, following experimental studies carried in this field by M. Nomura et al (1) or J.F. Robillard et al (2), we investigate heat transfer within PNC at room temperature. The proposed methodology lies on the use of Monte Carlo modeling of phonon transport, solving the BTE in the frame of the relaxation time approximation, for realistic structures with characteristic lengths of several microns. For the latter, periodicity and diameter of cylindrical pores are varied for aligned and staggered configurations. Simulation results show good agreement between experiments and numerical modeling. On this basis, an attempt to model and define universal parameters that link the thermal conductivity of the nanostructure to its key geometrical parameters is proposed.
(1) R. Anufriev et al., PRB, 93, 045411, 2016
(2) V. Lacatena et al., APL, 106, 114104, 2015