Enhancement of Thermal Conductance at Metal-Dielectric Interfaces Using Subnanometer Metal Adhesion Layers

As electronics continue to shrink, heat management at the nanoscale has become increasingly important. The authors show that the thermal conductance at a metal-dielectric interface can be improved by half an order of magnitude by inserting just 1 nm of another metal. Multifunctional interfaces, as in plasmonic applications for heat-assisted magnetic recording, could exploit this thermal benefit with little impact on other properties.