Thermal conductivity of nanoscale polycrystalline ZnO thin films

Thermal conductivities (TCs) of ZnO thin films of thickness 80-276 nm prepared by sol-gel method are measured by the transient thermoreflectance (TTR) system. The obtained TCs ranging from 1.4 to 6.5 W/m K decrease while the thickness decrease. The measured TCs are much smaller than those of bulk ZnO, which is about 100 W/m K. The possible reasons for the decrease are the grain boundary and defects. The latter is the dominating one from the analysis.