Thermal conductivity measurements of sub-surface buried substrates by steady-state thermoreflectance

Measuring the thermal conductivity of sub-surface buried substrates is of significant practical interests. However, this remains challenging with traditional pump-probe spectroscopies due to their limited thermal penetration depths. Here, we experimentally and numerically investigate the TPD of the recently developed optical pump-probe technique steady-state thermoreflectance (SSTR) and explore its capability for measuring the thermal properties of buried substrates. The conventional definition of the TPD (i.e., the depth at which temperature drops to 1/e value of the maximum surface temperature) does not truly represent the upper limit of how far beneath the surface SSTR can probe. For estimating the uncertainty of SSTR measurements of a buried substrate a priori, sensitivity calculations provide the best means. Thus, detailed sensitivity calculations are provided to guide future measurements. Due to the steady-state nature of SSTR, it can measure the thermal conductivity of buried substrates that are traditionally challenging by transient pump-probe techniques, exemplified by measuring three control samples. We also discuss the required criteria for SSTR to isolate the thermal properties of a buried film. Our study establishes SSTR as a suitable technique for thermal characterizations of sub-surface buried substrates in typical device geometries.