Atomic-Scale Phonon Engineering for Enhanced Thermal Transport in Wafer-Scale-Bonded $β$-Ga$_{2}$O$_{3}$/SiC Heterostructures

Abstract

Bonding semiconductors to substrates with high thermal conductivity is a promising way to solve the heat-dissipation problem of materials that transport heat poorly, and it avoids the lattice-matching constraints of conventional epitaxy. However, the lattice mismatch remains, leaving the two materials with mismatched phonon states, while poor interface quality scatters phonons even more. Together, these effects block phonon transport across the bonded interface and make interfacial thermal resistance a critical bottleneck, calling for careful interface engineering. Here, $β$-Ga$_{2}$O$_{3}$/SiC serves as a model system for a phonon-bridging strategy. A nanoscale crystalline Si interlayer is designed and fabricated by wafer bonding to bridge the mismatched phonon states of $β$-Ga$_{2}$O$_{3}$ and SiC. Spatially resolved electron energy-loss spectroscopy and molecular dynamics simulations show that this Si layer opens new channels for phonon transport across the interface. The engineered interface raises the interfacial thermal conductance to 165 MW m$^{-2}$ K$^{-1}$ -- the highest value yet reported for $β$-Ga$_{2}$O$_{3}$/SiC interfaces. These results offer an effective way to manage heat in $β$-Ga$_{2}$O$_{3}$ devices and point to a general approach for building phonon-bridging interfaces that improve heat dissipation in heterogeneous systems.