Abstract

The use of opals in many devices requires the lowest available thermal conductivity. In this case the switching power and switching time are decreased. It is thus evident the importance of the experimental determination of the thermal properties of the opals. Since the typical dimension of these kind of structures is of the order of 5x5x0.5 mm³, the problem is not trivial. The photothermal deflection technique, that is a non-contact method is one possible solution. We applied this technique to different SiO₂/GaN opals obtained by assembling SiO₂ spheres with a diameter of about 650 nm, and by infiltrating GaN at different percentage. Two different configurations have been used to investigate separately both thermal and optical properties by using the photothermal deflection technique.

© 2007 IEEE