Comparison of four-probe thermal and thermoelectric transport measurements of thin films and nanostructures with microfabricated electro-thermal transducers

Two different four-probe thermal and thermoelectric measurement methods have been reported for measuring the thermal conductivity, Seebeck coefficient, and electrical conductivity of suspended thin films and nanostructures with microfabricated electro-thermal transducers. The thermal contact resistance was extracted from the measured thermoelectric voltage drop at the contacts in the earlier four-probe method based on the assumption of constant thermal and thermoelectric properties along the sample. In comparison, the latter four-probe method can directly obtain the contact thermal resistance together with the intrinsic sample thermal resistance without making this assumption. Here, the measurement theory and data reduction processes of the latter four-probe measurement method are re-examined and improved. The measured thermal conductivity result of this improved method on representative thin film samples are found to agree with those obtained from the earlier four-probe method, which has obtained similar Seebeck coefficient and electrical conductivity as those measured with a different method for a supported thin film. The agreement provides further validation of the latest four-probe thermal transport measurement method of thin films and nanostructures. (topical review)