Thermal conductivity measurement of thin films by a dc method

A dc method, which needs no complex numerical calculation and expensive hardware configuration, was developed to measure the cross-plane thermal conductivity of thin films in this paper. Two parallel metallic heaters, which were deposited on different parts of the sample, serve simultaneously as the heaters and temperature sensors during the measurement. A direct current was flowed through the same two metallic strips to heat the thin-film sample. The heating power and the heater's temperature were obtained by a data acquisition device, and the thermal conductivity of thin film was calculated. To verify the validity of the dc method, several SiO(2) films with different thicknesses were deposited on Si wafers, respectively, and their thermal conductivities were measured by both the dc method and 3ω method. The results of two methods are in good agreement within an acceptable error, and they are also inconsistent with some of previously published data.