Pressure-induced tuning of thermal transport in carbon-based composites: Directional control of heat dissipation
     Topic(s) : Material science

    Co-authors​ :

     Gal SHACHAR MICAHELY (ISRAEL), Noam LUSTHAUS , Lev VAIKHANSKI , Gennady ZISKIND , Yachin COHEN , Oren REGEV (ISRAEL) 

    Abstract :
    Aggressive miniaturization in the electronics industry demands more efficient thermal management for electronic devices. Employing the excluded volume approach, we enhanced thermal conductivity (TC) and manipulated heat dissipation in a polymer composite loaded with a thermally conductive filler-graphene nanoplatelets (GNP)-alone or supplemented with a high-volume filler (diamonds). This yielded a maximum bulk TC of 4.5 W m(-1)K(-1) (no compression). The heat dissipation direction could be controlled by compressing (>= 50 bars) the wet composite before curing, resulting in an enhancement of the cross-plane thermal conductivity (for thermal-interface materials) to 12.3 W m(-1)K(-1). For non-compressed samples, in-plane thermal conductivity (for circuit board conformal coatings) was dominant (8 Wm(-1)K(-1)). Our holistic approach meets diverse thermal management needs.