Nanoscale temperature mapping in operating microelectronic devices

• DOI: 10.1126/science.aaa2433
• Publication Date: 2015-02-05T19:09:31Z
• Authors: Matthew Mecklenburg; William A. Hubbard; E. R. White; Rohan Dhall; Stephen B. Cronin; Shaul Aloni; B. C. Regan
• Keywords: Thermometer; Microelectronics; Nanometre

Modern microelectronic devices have nanoscale features that dissipate power nonuniformly, but fundamental physical limits frustrate efforts to detect the resulting temperature gradients. Contact thermometers disturb of a small system, while radiation struggle beat diffraction limit. Exploiting same physics as Fahrenheit's glass-bulb thermometer, we mapped thermal expansion Joule-heated, 80-nanometer-thick aluminum wires by precisely measuring changes in density. With scanning transmission electron microscope and energy loss spectroscopy, quantified local density via aluminum's bulk plasmon. Rescaling yields maps with statistical precision 3 kelvin/hertz(-1/2), an accuracy 10%, nanometer-scale resolution. Many common metals semiconductors sufficiently sharp plasmon resonances serve their own thermometers.