Evaluation of Specific Heat, Sound Velocity and Lattice Thermal Conductivity of Strained Nanocrystalline Bismuth Antimony Telluride Thin Films

To investigate the effect of strain on specific heat, sound velocity and lattice thermal conductivity of nanocrystalline bismuth antimony telluride thin films, we performed both experimental study and modeling. The nanocrystalline thin films had mostly preferred crystal orientation along c-axis, and strains in the both directions of c-axis and a-b-axis. It was found that the thermal conductivity of nanocrystalline thin films decreased greatly as compared with that of bulk alloys. To gain insight into the thermal transport in the strained nanocrystalline thin films, we estimated the lattice thermal conductivity based on the phonon transport model of full distribution of mean free paths accounting for the effects of grain size and strain which was influenced to both the sound velocity and the specific heat. As a result, the lattice thermal conductivity was increased when the strain was shifted from compressive to tensile direction. We also confirmed that the strain was influenced by the lattice thermal conductivity but the reduction of the lattice thermal conductivity of thin films can be mainly attributed to the nano-size effect rather than the strain effect. Finally, it was found that the measured lattice thermal conductivities were in good agreement with modeling.