Measurement of the Thermal Conductivity of Nanodeposited Material

The small size of nanomaterials deposited by either focused ions or electron beams has prevented the determination of reliable thermal property data by existing methods. A new method is described that uses a suspended platinum hot film to measure the thermal conductivity of a nanoscale deposition. The cross section of the Pt film needs to be as small as 50 nm × 500 nm to have sufficient sensitivity to detect the effect of the beam-induced nanodeposition. A direct current heating method is used before and after the deposition, and the change in the average temperature increase of the Pt hot film gives the thermal conductivity of the additional deposited material. In order to estimate the error introduced by the one-dimensional analytical model employed, a two-dimensional numerical simulation was conducted. It confirmed the reliability of this method for situations where the deposit extends onto the terminals by (1 μm or more. Measurements of amorphous carbon (a-C) films fabricated by electron beam induced deposition (EBID) produced thermal conductivities of 0.61 W · m⁻¹ · K⁻¹ to 0.73 W · m⁻¹ · K⁻¹ at 100 K to 340 K, values in good agreement with those of a-C thin films reported in the past.