Search results for "phononic crystal membranes"

Low temperature heat capacity of phononic crystal membranes

2016

Phononic crystal (PnC) membranes are a promising solution to improve sensitivity of bolometric sensor devices operating at low temperatures. Previous work has concentrated only on tuning thermal conductance, but significant changes to the heat capacity are also expected due to the modification of the phonon modes. Here, we calculate the area-specific heat capacity for thin (37.5 - 300 nm) silicon and silicon nitride PnC membranes with cylindrical hole patterns of varying period, in the temperature range 1 - 350 mK. We compare the results to two- and three-dimensional Debye models, as the 3D Debye model is known to give an accurate estimate for the low-temperature heat capacity of a bulk sam…