As solid-state components decrease in size, the overall effect of heat transfer in electrical devices becomes more important. By finding ways to control the thermal transport properties, manufacturers can produce faster and smaller computer chips. But for now, we are only trying to understand the properties of thin films.

Thin metallic films, such as nickel, gold, aluminum and chromium will be deposited on single crystalline substrates such as silicon and germanium wafers, as well as amorphous glass slides, by sputtering and evaporative methods. They will be characterized by grain size and shape using the scanning electron microscope and the atomic force microscope. Thermal transport properties will be measured using the Transient ThermoReflectance technique.