Thermal conductivity of periodic microporous silicon films

This letter reports the experimental in-plane thermal conductivity of microfabricated, free-standing, single-crystal silicon thin films with periodically arranged through-film micropores. The experimental data suggest that strong size effects exist even in micro-sized porous silicon structures, particularly at low temperatures. Even at room temperature, all porous membranes show thermal conductivity values lower than expected by porosity and bulk phonon mean free path of silicon, and small-pore membranes have smaller thermal conductivity compared to the large-pore ones despite that they have close porosity values. © 2004 American Institute of Physics.