Thermal Properties of Carbon Nanotube-Polymer Composites for Thermal Interface Material Applications

Author(s):  
Kafil M. Razeeb ◽  
Alessio Munari ◽  
Eric Dalton ◽  
Jeff Punch ◽  
Saibal Roy

This work presents the thermal property study of single wall and multi wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNT and MWCNT) both in their purified and unpurified forms introduced to silicone elastomer to enhance the thermal diffusivity of this industrial polymer. An increase in thermal diffusivity was observed for incremental loading of both purified and unpurified single wall and multiwall CNT in epoxy at different percentages. An increase of thermal diffusivity as high as 130% was achieved for ∼2 wt% loading of both single wall and multi wall nanotubes. Electrical conductivity measurements showed a percolation threshold for 2% loading of multiwall CNT, below which the nanotube-epoxy composite behaved as an insulator — this is a key property for applications where electrical isolation is required. For single wall CNT-epoxy composite all the samples showed high resistance to the conduction of current. Thermal impedance measurements showed a strong dependency of contact resistance with percentage loading. Finally, the feasibility of deploying carbon nanotube-polymer composites as practical thermal interface materials for electronics thermal management is discussed.

Author(s):  
Sankara J. Subramanian

This paper addresses cracking in solder thermal interface materials (STIMs) used in electronic packages under accelerated testing or service conditions. Finite-element models of various packages have been built to study the deformation in the STIM through a few cycles of accelerated testing. Two commonly observed failure modes — center/off-center brittle interfacial cracking, and cohesive corner cracking — were looked at. The success of the modeling approach was evaluated by comparison with thermal impedance data, as well as with CSAM images showing the extent of cracking in the STIM. It is shown that the models agree qualitatively with experimental data, both in terms of failure locations, as well as in terms of rank ordering different packages in terms of STIM degradation.


Author(s):  
S. Mahajan ◽  
G. Subbarayan ◽  
B. G. Sammakia ◽  
W. Jones

Thermal management in microelectronics is an important issue due to the projected increase in power dissipation in the electronic devices over the next 5–10 years. We seek a solution to this problem by exploring carbon nanotube-polymer matrix composites for use as thermal interface materials because of the reported high thermal conductivity and other remarkable thermal and mechanical properties of nanotubes. As an intermediate step to finding the composites’ conductivity, it is important to validate the use carbon nanotubes by calculating its diffusivity and conductivity first. This would facilitate later the estimating of important design parameters for thermal interface materials such as thermal diffusivity and conductivity. As polymer molecules are on the same size scale as nanotubes and the interaction at the polymer/nanotube interface is highly dependent on the molecular structure and bonding, Molecular Dynamic (MD) simulation is used to estimate the nano-scale properties. In this paper, until cell model consisting of a carbon nanotube was used and the diffusivity was measured. These findings would have implications in improving the thermal management efficiency and consequently improve the performance and reliability of future microelectronic devices.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (7) ◽  
pp. 1890
Author(s):  
Monika Rdest ◽  
Dawid Janas

This perspective article describes the application opportunities of carbon nanotube (CNT) films for the energy sector. Up to date progress in this regard is illustrated with representative examples of a wide range of energy management and transformation studies employing CNT ensembles. Firstly, this paper features an overview of how such macroscopic networks from nanocarbon can be produced. Then, the capabilities for their application in specific energy-related scenarios are described. Among the highlighted cases are conductive coatings, charge storage devices, thermal interface materials, and actuators. The selected examples demonstrate how electrical, thermal, radiant, and mechanical energy can be converted from one form to another using such formulations based on CNTs. The article is concluded with a future outlook, which anticipates the next steps which the research community will take to bring these concepts closer to implementation.


Nanomaterials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 1699
Author(s):  
Sriharsha Sudhindra ◽  
Fariborz Kargar ◽  
Alexander A. Balandin

We report on experimental investigation of thermal contact resistance, RC, of the noncuring graphene thermal interface materials with the surfaces characterized by different degree of roughness, Sq. It is found that the thermal contact resistance depends on the graphene loading, ξ, non-monotonically, achieving its minimum at the loading fraction of ξ ~15 wt %. Decreasing the surface roughness by Sq~1 μm results in approximately the factor of ×2 decrease in the thermal contact resistance for this graphene loading. The obtained dependences of the thermal conductivity, KTIM, thermal contact resistance, RC, and the total thermal resistance of the thermal interface material layer on ξ and Sq can be utilized for optimization of the loading fraction of graphene for specific materials and roughness of the connecting surfaces. Our results are important for the thermal management of high-power-density electronics implemented with diamond and other wide-band-gap semiconductors.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (12) ◽  
pp. 2901-2914 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reg Bauld ◽  
Dong-Yup William Choi ◽  
Paul Bazylewski ◽  
Ranjith Divigalpitiya ◽  
Giovanni Fanchini

Graphene–polymer composites show great promise as thermal interface materials. We here offer a deeper understanding of their thermal properties using contactless photothermal deflection techniques.


2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (9) ◽  
pp. 095102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nuri Na ◽  
Kei Hasegawa ◽  
Xiaosong Zhou ◽  
Mizuhisa Nihei ◽  
Suguru Noda

Carbon ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 145 ◽  
pp. 725-733 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lin Qiu ◽  
Pu Guo ◽  
Qinyu Kong ◽  
Chong Wei Tan ◽  
Kun Liang ◽  
...  

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4.33) ◽  
pp. 530
Author(s):  
Mazlan Mohamed ◽  
Mohd Nazri Omar ◽  
Mohamad Shaiful Ashrul Ishak ◽  
Rozyanty Rahman ◽  
Zaiazmin Y.N ◽  
...  

Epoxy mixed with others filler for thermal interface material (TIM) had been well conducted and developed. There are problem occurs when previous material were used as matrix material likes epoxy that has non-uniform thickness of thermal interface material produce, time taken for solidification and others. Thermal pad or thermal interface material using graphene as main material to overcome the existing problem and at the same time to increase thermal conductivity and thermal contact resistance. Three types of composite graphene were used for thermal interface material in this research. The sample that contain 10 wt. %, 20 wt. % and 30 wt. % of graphene was used with different contain of graphene oxide (GO).  The thermal conductivity of thermal interface material is both measured and it was found that the increase of amount of graphene used will increase the thermal conductivity of thermal interface material. The highest thermal conductivity is 12.8 W/ (mK) with 30 w. % graphene. The comparison between the present thermal interface material and other thermal interface material show that this present graphene-epoxy is an excellent thermal interface material in increasing thermal conductivity.  


Author(s):  
David Shaddock ◽  
Stanton Weaver ◽  
Ioannis Chasiotis ◽  
Binoy Shah ◽  
Dalong Zhong

The power density requirements continue to increase and the ability of thermal interface materials has not kept pace. Increasing effective thermal conductivity and reducing bondline thickness reduce thermal resistance. High thermal conductivity materials, such as solders, have been used as thermal interface materials. However, there is a limit to minimum bondline thickness in reducing resistance due to increased fatigue stress. A compliant thermal interface material is proposed that allows for thin solder bondlines using a compliant structure within the bondline to achieve thermal resistance <0.01 cm2C/W. The structure uses an array of nanosprings sandwiched between two plates of materials to match thermal expansion of their respective interface materials (ex. silicon and copper). Thin solder bondlines between these mating surfaces and high thermal conductivity of the nanospring layer results in thermal resistance of 0.01 cm2C/W. The compliance of the nanospring layer is two orders of magnitude more compliant than the solder layers so thermal stresses are carried by the nanosprings rather than the solder layers. The fabrication process and performance testing performed on the material is presented.


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