Effect of film thickness on the thermal resistance of confined semiconductor thin films

The thermal resistance of semiconductor thin films is predicted using lattice dynamics (LD) calculations and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. We consider Si and Ge films with thicknesses, LF, between 0.2 and 30 nm that are confined between larger extents of the other species (i.e., Ge/Si/Ge and Si/Ge/Si structures). The LD predictions are made in the classical limit for comparison to the classical MD simulations, which are performed at a temperature of 500 K. For structures with LF 2 nm, the MD-predicted thermal resistances are independent of the film thickness for the Ge/Si/Ge structures and increase with increasing film thickness for the Si/Ge/Si st...