Thermal Properties of Thin Metallic Layer Deposited on Insulators: Effect of the Interface on the Independent Determination of the Thermal Diffusivity and Conductivity of the Layer

Lateral heat diffusion thermoreflectance is a very powerful tool for determining directly the thermal diffusivity of layered structures. To do that, experimental data are fitted with the help of a heat diffusion model in which the ratio between the thermal conductivity k and the thermal diffusivity D of each layer is fixed, and the thermal properties of the substrate are known. We have shown in a previous work that it is possible to determine independently the thermal diffusivity and the thermal conductivity of a metallic layer deposited on an insulator, by taking into consideration all the data obtained at different modulation frequencies. Moreover, it is well known that to prevent a lack of adhesion of a gold film deposited on substrates like silica, an intermediate very thin (Cr or Ti) layer is deposited to assure a good thermal contact. We extend our previous work: the asymptotic behaviour determination of the surface temperature wave at large distances from the modulated point heat source for one layer deposited on the substrate to the two layers model. In this case (very thin adhesion coating whose thermal properties and thickness are known), it can be establish that the thermal diffusivity and the thermal conductivity of the top layer can still be determined independently. It is interesting to underline that the calculus can also be extended to the case of a thermal contact resistance which has often to be taken into account between two solids. We call thermal resistance a very thin layer exhibiting a very low thermal conductivity. In this case, the three parameters we have to determine are the thermal conductivity and the thermal diffusivity of the layer and the thermal resistance. We will show that, in this case, the thermal conductivity of the layer is always obtained independently of a bound of the couple thermal resistance – thermal diffusivity, the thermal diffusivity being under bounded and the thermal resistance lower bounded. Experimental results on thin gold layers deposited on silica with and without adhesion layers are presented to illustrate the method. Discussions on the accuracy will also be presented.