Anisotropic thermal transport property of defect-free GaN

WJ Ju and ZY Zhou and ZY Wei, AIP ADVANCES, 6, 065328 (2016).

DOI: 10.1063/1.4955185

Non-equilibrium molecular dynamics (MD) simulation is performed to calculate the thermal conductivity of defect-free GaN along three high- symmetry directions. It is found that the thermal conductivity along 001 direction is about 25% higher than that along 100 or 120 direction. The calculated phonon dispersion relation and iso-energy surface from lattice dynamics show that the difference of the sound speeds among the three high-symmetry directions is quite small for the same mode. However, the variation of phonon irradiation with direction is qualitatively consistent with that of the calculated thermal conductivity. Our results indicate that the anisotropic thermal conductivity may partly result from the phonons in the low-symmetry region of the first Brillouin zone due to phonon focus effects, even though the elastic properties along the three high-symmetry directions are nearly isotropic. Thus, the phonon irradiation is able to better describe the property of thermal conductivity as compared to the commonly used phonon dispersion relation. The present investigations uncover the physical origin of the anisotropic thermal conductivity in defect-free GaN, which would provide an important guide for optimizing the thermal management of GaN-based device. (C) 2016 Author(s).

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