Manipulating the interfacial structure is vital to enhancing
the
interfacial thermal conductance (G) in Cu/diamond
composites for promising thermal management applications. An interconnected
interlayer is frequently observed in Cu/diamond composites; however,
the G between Cu and diamond with an interconnected
interlayer has not been addressed so far and thus is attracting extensive
attention in the field. In this study, we designed three kinds of
interlayers between a Cu film and a diamond substrate by magnetron
sputtering coupled with heat treatment, including a W interlayer,
an interconnected W–W2C interlayer, and a W2C interlayer, to comparatively elucidate the relationship
between the interfacial structure and the interfacial thermal conductance.
For the first time, we experimentally measured the G between Cu and diamond with an interconnected interlayer by a time-domain
thermoreflectance technique. The Cu/W–W2C/diamond
structure exhibits an intermediate G value of 25.8
MW/m2 K, higher than the 19.9 MW/m2 K value
for the Cu/W2C/diamond structure and lower than the 29.4
MW/m2 K value for the Cu/W/diamond structure. The molecular
dynamics simulations show that the G of the individual
W2C/diamond interface is much higher than those of the
individual Cu/diamond and W/diamond interfaces and W2C
could reduce the vibrational mismatch between Cu and diamond; however,
the G of the Cu/W2C/diamond structure
is reduced by the lower thermal conductivity of W2C. This
study provides insights into the relationship between the interconnected
interfacial structure and the G between Cu and diamond
and offers guidance for interface design to improve the thermal conductivity
in Cu/diamond composites.
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