Universal thermal contact resistance at high frequencies

International audienceThe existence of a universal interfacial thermal resistance in a broad range of systems is shown using linear response theory and computations of realistic materials. When the thermal excitation is modulated up to frequencies larger than the intrinsic resistance scattering rate defined in a previous paper [A. Rajabpour and S. Volz, J. Appl. Phys. 108, 094324 (2010)], the interfacial resistance becomes reversely proportional to frequency and only depends on the number of degrees of freedom involved in the heat transfer between both systems. We present molecular dynamics simulations of connected crystals corroborating these statements from both quantitative and qualitative viewpoints. This finding significantly impacts the thermal management of nanoelectronic systems at nanoscales where heat removal mainly relies on interfacial scattering