Thermal Conductivity Across The Van Der Waals Layers Of Alpha-Moo3 Thin Films Composed Of Mosaic Domains With In-Plane 90 Degrees Rotations

alpha-Molybdenum trioxide (alpha-MoO3) is a typical two-dimensional metal oxide material, in which the covalently bonded layers are bonded by van der Waals forces. Herein, the thermal conductivities across the van der Waals layers of alpha-MoO3 thin films with nominal thicknesses of 50, 100, and 125 nm were investigated. The alpha-MoO3 thin films were fabricated on the (100) plane of a single-crystalline SrTiO3 substrate heated up to 400 degrees C by DC reactive magnetron sputtering using a Mo metal target. The b-axis-oriented alpha-MoO3 thin films epitaxially grown on the SrTiO3 (100) plane were confirmed by x-ray diffraction and x-ray pole figure analyses. Electron diffraction patterns and plane-view transmission electron micrographs revealed that the alpha-MoO3 thin films were composed of mosaic domains with a diameter of similar to 2 nm, with each domain rotated in-plane by 90 degrees with respect to the neighboring one. The mean thermal conductivity across the van der Waals layers of the three alpha-MoO3 thin films was evaluated to be 1.2 +/- 0.3 W m(-1) K-1, which is comparable to the reported thermal conductivities of layered cobalt oxide thin films. The reduced thermal conductivity is mainly due to phonon scattering at domain boundaries lying in the in-plane direction.