Thermal Characterization of Buried Interfaces in Multilayer Heterostructures via TDTR with Periodic Waveform Analysis

Abstract

Accurate evaluation of buried thermal interfaces is vital for understanding and optimizing heat dissipation in wide- and ultra-wide-bandgap (WBG/UWBG) semiconductor devices. Conventional time-domain thermoreflectance (TDTR) typically probes only near-surface transport due to its restricted modulation frequency range. Here, we employ a frequency-tunable periodic waveform analysis TDTR (PWA-TDTR) technique to perform depth-resolved thermal measurements on three representative systems: epitaxial ε-Ga2O3/SiC, GaN/Si, and mechanically bonded GaN/diamond. By combining broadband multi-frequency probing with sensitivity-guided joint fitting, we quantitively determine interfacial thermal conductance, layer-specific thermal conductivity, and volumetric heat capacity, without requiring destructive sample preparation. The results reveal that the buried Ga2O3/SiC interface exhibits weak phonon transmission due to acoustic mismatch; the transition layers in GaN/Si act as phonon-impedance gradients that redistribute heat flux; and the GaN/diamond boundary remains the dominant thermal bottleneck despite diamond's ultrahigh bulk conductivity. These findings demonstrate that the modulation frequency in PWA-TDTR functions as a tunable probe of depth-dependent phonon transport, directly linking frequency-domain thermal response to interfacial energy transmission. Overall, this work positions PWA-TDTR as a versatile platform for investigating buried nonmetal-nonmetal interfaces in next-generation high-power and optoelectronic materials.