PRISM: Unifying multiphysics optothermal transport and identifiability-guided inference for nanoscale thermal metrology
Abstract
Quantifying thermal transport across micro- and nanoscale heterostructures is critical for solid-state devices and relies on fitting heat-transfer models to thermal-wave spectra. When probing scales approach optical absorption depths, electron-phonon equilibration lengths, or phonon mean free paths, classical surface-heating Fourier models can match measured phase spectra while returning biased, measurement-dependent parameters. Here we introduce PRISM (Physics-Resolved Inference and Screening Meta-framework), an agentic framework coupling multilayer optical transfer-matrix electrodynamics, two-temperature electron-phonon relaxation, and nonlocal Guyer-Krumhansl phonon hydrodynamics within a unified admittance formalism, paired with singular-value-decomposition identifiability screening and knowledge-guided routing. Demonstrated with frequency-domain thermoreflectance across stacks relevant to microelectronic contacts and dielectric barriers, PRISM corrects a 24-28% interfacial conductance underestimation in Au/Si, recovers intrinsic silica conductivity in Au/Ti/SiO2, and eliminates a 40% cross-plane conductivity underestimation in Au/MoS2. In bimetallic Au/Ti/Si stacks, where all three non-classical mechanisms act simultaneously, nonlocal modeling reconciles the $116−137$ W m−1 K−1 local-fit scatter across spot sizes and frequency windows into a configuration-independent intrinsic silicon conductivity of $141$ W m−1 K−1. For ion-irradiated and graded media with continuous conductivity profiles, PRISM can autonomously construct and verify a deep operator network solver to reconstruct steep damage gradients. By uniting non-equilibrium transport physics and identifiability screening with autonomous model synthesis, PRISM establishes a generalizable paradigm readily extensible to broader optothermal and thermal-wave metrology modalities.
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BibTeX
@misc{qiu2026prism,
title = {{PRISM: Unifying multiphysics optothermal transport and identifiability-guided inference for nanoscale thermal metrology}},
author = {Yicong Qiu and Ziyang Zhong and Ziyan Qian and Yang Lu and Yong Jian Hong and Chenhan Liu and Qiye Zheng},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2611.02475},
eprint = {2611.02475},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.02475},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - PRISM: Unifying multiphysics optothermal transport and identifiability-guided inference for nanoscale thermal metrology
AU - Yicong Qiu
AU - Ziyang Zhong
AU - Ziyan Qian
AU - Yang Lu
AU - Yong Jian Hong
AU - Chenhan Liu
AU - Qiye Zheng
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/02
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2611.02475
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.02475
AB - Quantifying thermal transport across micro- and nanoscale heterostructures is critical for solid-state devices and relies on fitting heat-transfer models to thermal-wave spectra. When probing scales approach optical absorption depths, electron-phonon equilibration lengths, or phonon mean free paths, classical surface-heating Fourier models can match measured phase spectra while returning biased, measurement-dependent parameters. Here we introduce PRISM (Physics-Resolved Inference and Screening Meta-framework), an agentic framework coupling multilayer optical transfer-matrix electrodynamics, two-temperature electron-phonon relaxation, and nonlocal Guyer-Krumhansl phonon hydrodynamics within a unified admittance formalism, paired with singular-value-decomposition identifiability screening and knowledge-guided routing. Demonstrated with frequency-domain thermoreflectance across stacks relevant to microelectronic contacts and dielectric barriers, PRISM corrects a 24-28% interfacial conductance underestimation in Au/Si, recovers intrinsic silica conductivity in Au/Ti/SiO_2, and eliminates a 40% cross-plane conductivity underestimation in Au/MoS_2. In bimetallic Au/Ti/Si stacks, where all three non-classical mechanisms act simultaneously, nonlocal modeling reconciles the $116−137$ W m^−1 K^−1 local-fit scatter across spot sizes and frequency windows into a configuration-independent intrinsic silicon conductivity of $141$ W m^−1 K^−1. For ion-irradiated and graded media with continuous conductivity profiles, PRISM can autonomously construct and verify a deep operator network solver to reconstruct steep damage gradients. By uniting non-equilibrium transport physics and identifiability screening with autonomous model synthesis, PRISM establishes a generalizable paradigm readily extensible to broader optothermal and thermal-wave metrology modalities.
ER -