A contactless scanning near-field optical dilatometer imaging the thermal expansivity of inhomogeneous 2D materials and thin films at the nanoscale

Abstract

To date, there are very few experimental techniques, if any, that are suitable for the purpose of acquiring, with nanoscale lateral resolution, quantitative maps of the thermal expansivity of 2D materials and thin films, despite huge demand for nanoscale thermal management, for example in designing integrated circuitry for power electronics. Besides, contactless analytical tools for determining the thermal expansion coefficient (TEC) are highly desirable, because probes in contact with the sample significantly perturb any thermal measurements. Here, we introduce {\omega}-2{\omega} near-field thermoreflectance imaging, as an all-optical and contactless approach to map the TEC at the nanoscale with precision. Testing of our technique is performed on nanogranular films of gold and multilayer graphene (ML-G) platelets. Our method demonstrates that the TEC of Au is higher at the metal-insulator interface, with an average of (17.12 +/- 2.30)x10-6 K-1 in agreement with macroscopic techniques. For ML-G, the average TEC was (-5.77 +/- 3.79)x10-6 K-1 and is assigned to in-plane vibrational bending modes. A vibrational-thermal transition from graphene to graphite is observed, where the TEC becomes positive as the ML thickness increases. Our nanoscale method demonstrates results in excellent agreement with its macroscopic counterparts, as well as superior capabilities to probe 2D materials and interfaces.