Phonon dynamic behaviors induced by amorphous layers at heterointerfaces.

An amorphous layer is commonly found at the interfaces of heterostructures due to lattice and thermal mismatch between dissimilar materials. While existing research has explored the impact of these layers on interfacial thermal transport, a comprehensive understanding of the underlying microscopic mechanisms remains essential for advancing thermal nanodevice development. Through phonon wave packet simulations, we investigated the dynamic behaviors of phonons crossing the amorphous interlayer at the GaN/AlN interface from the mode level.

Atomic-Scale Surface Engineering for Giant Thermal Transport Enhancement Across 2D/3D van der Waals Interfaces.

Heat dissipation in two-dimensional (2D) material-based electronic devices is a critical issue for their applications. The bottleneck for this thermal issue is inefficient for heat removal across the van der Waals (vdW) interface between the 2D material and its supporting three-dimensional (3D) substrate. In this work, we demonstrate that an atomic-scale thin amorphous layer atop the substrate surface can remarkably enhance the interfacial thermal conductance (ITC) of the 2D-MoS/3D-GaN vdW interface by a factor of 4 compared to that of the untreated crystalline substrate surface.