Heat capacity and phonon mean free path of wurtzite GaN

Authors:
  • BDB. A. Danilchenko
    B. A. Danilchenko
  • TPT. Paszkiewicz
    T. Paszkiewicz
  • SWS. Wolski
    S. Wolski
  • AJA. Je{Ż}Owski
    A. Je{Ż}Owski

Abstract
We report on lattice specific heat of bulk hexagonal GaN measured by the heat flow method in the temperature range 20-300 K and by the adiabatic method in the range 5-70 K. We fit the experimental data using two temperatures model. The best fit with the accuracy of 3 % was obtained for the temperature independent Debye's temperature $\theta_{\rm D}=365$ {\rm K} and Einstein's temperature $\theta_{\rm E}=880$ {\rm K}. We relate these temperatures to the function of density of states. Using our results for heat conduction coefficient, we established in temperature range 10-100 K the explicit dependence of the phonon mean free path on temperature $\it{l}_{\rm ph}\propto T^{-2}$. Above 100 K, there is the evidence of contribution of the Umklapp processes which limit phonon free path at high temepratures. For phonons with energy $k_{\rm B}\times 300 $ {\rm K} the mean free path is of the order 100 {\rm nm}