An in situ, noncontact, photothermal displacement interferometer for performing thermal diffusivity measurements on bulk and thin-fihn materials has been developed. Localized transient surface motion is generated through photothermoelastic coupling of a pulsed, heating laser beam to the sample under investigation. The maximum surface displacement is found to be linearly dependent on the laser power while the proportionality is a function of the thermal diffusivity. Both thin-film conductivity and film/substrate interface thermal resistance are derived from the measured, effective thermal conductivity by employing simple heat-flow analysis. Wedge-shaped Si films, vacuum deposited on single crystal Si wafers are studied with this technique. A sample with oxide layer removed by ion bombardment of the wafer surface prior to film deposition shows the same film conductivity as a sample film deposited on an as-cast wafer, while the uncleaned sample exhibits higher interface thermal resistance. It is found that the thin-film thermal conductivity is somewhat smaller than the bulk value. However, the existence of an interface thermal resistance, when combined with film thermal conductivity, can result in an effective thermal conductivity as low as two orders of magnitude lower than the bulk value. 1 0 T ( r , z, t) _ Q(r, z, t) VZT(r, z, ~) k 0t K ' (2)
(1 --2u)V2n q-V ( V . n) = 2(1 q-u)cqhVT.