On the role of piezoelectricity in phonon properties and thermal conductivity of GaN nanofilms

•The impact of piezoelectricity on the phonon properties and thermal conductivity of gallium nitride (GaN) nanofilms is studied theoretically.•The elastic model combining with the piezoelectric constitutive relation is applied to describe the confined-phonon properties.•The piezoelectric effect leads to the change of the temperature- and size-dependence of thermal conductivity.

The effect of piezoelectricity on phonon properties and thermal conductivity of gallium nitride (GaN) nanofilms is theoretically investigated. The elasticity model is utilized to derive the phonon properties in spatially confined GaN nanofilms. The piezoelectric constitutive relation in GaN nanofilms is taken into account in calculating the phonon dispersion relation. The modified phonon group velocity and phonon density of state as well as the phonon thermal conductivity are also obtained due to the contribution of piezoelectricity. Theoretical results show that the piezoelectricity in GaN nanofilms can change significantly the phonon properties such as the phonon group velocity and density of states, resulting in the variation of the phonon thermal conductivity of GaN nanofilms remarkably. Moreover, the piezoelectricity of GaN can modify the dependence of thermal conductivity on the geometrical size and temperature. These results can be useful in modeling the thermal performance in the active region of GaN-based electronic devices.