Calculations were made of the lattice thermal conductivity in wurtzite GaN. The proposed model was material-specific and explicitly included phonon relaxation on threading dislocations, and impurities typical for GaN. It was found that a decrease in the dislocation density, by 2 orders of magnitude, led to a corresponding increase in the thermal conductivity of 1.31 to 1.97W/cmK. This theoretical prediction was in very good agreement with experimental data obtained using scanning thermal microscopy.

Effect of Dislocations on Thermal Conductivity of GaN Layers. D.Kotchetkov, J.Zou, A.A.Balandin, D.I.Florescu, F.H.Pollak: Applied Physics Letters, 2001, 79[26], 4316-8