Contribution of Ballistic Electron Transport to Energy Transfer During Electron-Phonon Nonequilibrium in Thin Metal Films

With the ever decreasing characteristic lengths of nanomaterials, nonequilibrium electron-phonon scattering can be affected by additional scattering processes at the interface of two materials. Electron-interface scattering would lead to another path of energy flow for the high-energy electrons other than electron-phonon coupling in a single material. Traditionally, electron-phonon coupling in transport is analyzed with a diffusion (Fourier) based model, such as the two temperature model (TTM). However, in thin films with thicknesses less than the electron mean free path, ballistic electron transport could lead to electron-interface scattering, which is not taken into account in the TTM. The ballistic component of electron transport, leading to electron-interface scattering during ultrashort pulsed laser heating, is studied here by a ballistic-diffusive approximation of the Boltzmann transport equation. The results for electron-phonon equilibration times are compared with calculations with TTM based approximations and experimental data on Au thin films. DOI: 10.1115/1.3072929