A Close-Packed-Carbon-Nanotube Film on SiC for Thermal Interface Material Applications

In order to improve the thermal conductivity of silicone, we prepared silicone/carbon nanotube array (CNTA) composite by immersing the CNTA into silicone solution and cured at 110 °C. The thermal conductivity of silicone and silicone/CNTA composite was measured by laser flash method at 30 °C, 60 °C, 90 °C, 120 °C, which are usually the operating temperatures. It was found that the thermal conductivity of silicone/CNTA composite increased with the temperature until achieved the plateau near 90 °C. The maximum thermal conductivity of silicone/CNTA composite is 0.674 W/mK, which is 220% higher than that of neat silicone. The excellent thermal conductivity makes the composite a promising thermal interface material.

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Design, Synthesis, and Performance of a Carbon Nanotube/Metal Foil Thermal Interface Material

First International Conference on Integration and Commercialization of Micro and Nanosystems, Parts A and B ◽

10.1115/mnc2007-21418 ◽

2007 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Baratunde A. Cola ◽

Xianfan Xu ◽

Timothy S. Fisher

Keyword(s):

Carbon Nanotube ◽

Thermal Performance ◽

Thermal Conduction ◽

Thermal Interface Material ◽

Metal Foil ◽

Thermal Interface ◽

Design Synthesis ◽

Cnt Arrays ◽

And Performance ◽

Contact Spots

The thermal performance of an interface material comprised of a metal foil with dense, vertically oriented carbon nanotube (CNT) arrays synthesized on both of its surfaces is characterized for rough and smooth interfaces. The CNT/foil deforms in the interfaces by two mechanisms, CNT deformation and foil deformation, that may significantly increase the number of CNT contact spots on both sides of the foil. As a result, the thermal conduction at the CNT-array-free-tip interfaces is greatly increased from previous measurements.

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Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Nanotube-Polymer Composites for Use as Thermal Interface Material

Electronic and Photonic Packaging, Electrical Systems and Photonic Design, and Nanotechnology ◽

10.1115/imece2003-42462 ◽

2003 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

S. Mahajan ◽

G. Subbarayan ◽

B. G. Sammakia ◽

W. Jones

Keyword(s):

Carbon Nanotube ◽

Thermal Management ◽

Cell Model ◽

Thermal Interface Material ◽

Design Parameters ◽

Intermediate Step ◽

Thermal Interface Materials ◽

Thermal Interface ◽

Scale Properties ◽

Interface Materials

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.

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Vertically aligned carbon nanotube arrays as a thermal interface material

APL Materials ◽

10.1063/1.5083868 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 7 (2) ◽

pp. 020902 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Linquan Ping ◽

Peng-Xiang Hou ◽

Chang Liu ◽

Hui-Ming Cheng

Keyword(s):

Carbon Nanotube ◽

Thermal Interface Material ◽

Nanotube Arrays ◽

Thermal Interface ◽

Carbon Nanotube Arrays ◽

Vertically Aligned

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Characterization of Carbon Nanotube Array Based Thermal Interface Material After Bonding Process

2010 14th International Heat Transfer Conference, Volume 6 ◽

10.1115/ihtc14-22989 ◽

2010 ◽

Author(s):

Rong-Shiuan Chu ◽

Yang Zhao ◽

Arun Majumdar

Keyword(s):

Thermal Conductivity ◽

Carbon Nanotube ◽

Contact Resistance ◽

Target Surface ◽

Thermal Interface Material ◽

Bonding Layer ◽

Nanotube Array ◽

Thermal Interface ◽

Carbon Nanotube Array ◽

Overall Resistance

Vertically Aligned Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Arrays are promising to use as advanced thermal interface material. While possessing high thermal conductivity for an individual tube, carbon nanotube array based thermal interface materials (TIMs) fell short of expectations due to poor CNTs-target surface contacts. Investigations suggested that the overall resistance can be potentially reduced to less than 1 m2-K/MW by increasing the number of tubes to target surface contacts. This paper use chromium/gold/indium assisted thermal pressure-bonding to enhance contacts. A CNT array with 12.7% areal density was bonded to an experimental glass surface with 2-μm indium bonding layer and 10 nm-chromium/150 nm-gold adhesion layers under pressure of 196 KPa and temperature of 350 °C. Phase sensitive photothermal reflectance method was used for thermal measurement. The overall resistance, including CNTs-glass contact resistance and effective CNT array thermal resistance, is 1.1 m2-K/MW ± 27%. Although the contact resistance was reduced to 0.39 m2-K/MW ± 15%, the effective thermal conductivity of the post-bonded 80 μm long CNTs was 114 W/m-K ± 22%, which was lower than the expected lower bound of the thermal conductivity of 12.7% filled CNT array. It was suggested that the deformation of CNT array after mechanical bonding reduced its performance.

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Carbon nanotube thermal interface material for high-brightness light-emitting-diode cooling

Nanotechnology ◽

10.1088/0957-4484/19/21/215706 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 19 (21) ◽

pp. 215706 ◽

Cited By ~ 102

Author(s):

K Zhang ◽

Y Chai ◽

M M F Yuen ◽

D G W Xiao ◽

P C H Chan

Keyword(s):

Carbon Nanotube ◽

Light Emitting Diode ◽

Thermal Interface Material ◽

Thermal Interface ◽

High Brightness ◽

Light Emitting

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Effect of Contact Pressure on the Performance of Carbon Nanotube Arrays Thermal Interface Material

Nanomaterials ◽

10.3390/nano8090732 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 8 (9) ◽

pp. 732 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Yu Pei ◽

Hongmei Zhong ◽

Mengyu Wang ◽

Peng Zhang ◽

Yang Zhao

Keyword(s):

Carbon Nanotube ◽

Thermal Resistance ◽

Contact Pressure ◽

Surface Deformation ◽

Strong Dependence ◽

Thermal Conductance ◽

Thermal Interface Material ◽

Thermal Interface ◽

Minimum Requirement ◽

Cnt Arrays

Vertically aligned carbon nanotube (CNT) arrays are promising candidates for advanced thermal interface materials (TIMs) since they possess high mechanical compliance and high intrinsic thermal conductivity. Some of the previous works indicate that the CNT arrays in direct dry contact with the target surface possess low contact thermal conductance, which is the dominant thermal resistance. Using a phase sensitive transient thermo-reflectance (PSTTR) technique, we measure the thermal conductance between CNT arrays and copper (Cu) surfaces under different pressures. The experiments demonstrated that the contact force is one of the crucial factors for optimizing the thermal performance of CNT array-based TIMs. The experimental results suggest that the Cu-CNT arrays’ contact thermal conductance has a strong dependence on the surface deformation and has an order of magnitude rise as the contact pressure increases from 0.05 to 0.15 MPa. However, further increase of the contact pressure beyond 0.15 MPa has little effect on the contact thermal resistance. This work could provide guidelines to determine the minimum requirement of packaging pressure on CNT TIMs.

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