A Roadmap Review of Thermally Conductive Polymer Composites: Critical Factors, Progress, and Prospects

Abstract

Recently, the need for miniaturization and high integration have steered a strong technical wave in developing (micro‐)electronic devices. However, excessive amounts of heat may be generated during operation/charging, severely affecting device performance and leading to life/property loss. Benefiting from their low density, easy processing and low manufacturing cost, thermally conductive polymer composites have become a research hotspot to mitigate the disadvantage of excessive heat, with potential applications in 5G communication, electronic packaging and energy transmission. By far, the reported thermal conductivity coefficient (λ) of thermally conductive polymer composite is far from expectation. Deeper understanding of heat transfer mechanism is desired for developing next generation thermally conductive composites. This review holistically scopes current advances in this field, while giving special attention to critical factors that affect thermal conductivity in polymer composites as well as the thermal conduction mechanisms on how to enhance the λ value. This review covers critical factors such as interfacial thermal resistance, chain structure of polymer, intrinsic λ value of different thermally conductive fillers, orientation/configuration of nanoparticles, 3D interconnected networks, processing technology, etc. The applications of thermally conductive polymer composites in electronic devices are summarized. The existing problems are also discussed, new challenges and opportunities are prospected.

Effect of the Structure of Epoxy Monomers and Curing Agents: Toward Making Intrinsically Highly Thermally Conductive and Low-Dielectric Epoxy Resins

“…Epoxy resins are widely utilized in electronic packaging, copper-clad plates, printed circuit boards, semiconductors, wireless base stations, and other electronic information, communication, and electrical fields ascribed to their high strength, superb electrical insulation, chemical corrosion resistance, low coefficient of linear expansion, low shrinkage, as well as easy processability and low cost. , However, electronic and electrical devices are developing toward high density, high integration, high power, and miniaturization. Consequently, the packing density is also increasing exponentially. − These inevitably cause the substantial increase of heat generation and accumulation, , which would bring adverse effects to the stability, reliability, durability, and service life of components or even burnout or explosion in some extreme circumstances. , Therefore, packaging materials and substrates with efficient heat dissipation are urgently required. − In addition, with the growth of high-speed and high-frequency communication technology, information processing and transmission should be very fast to ensure the stability and fidelity of electromagnetic signals and to avoid signal propagation delay, attenuation, and crosstalk. Therefore, the substrates and packaging materials should possess low dielectric constant (ε) and dielectric loss tangent (tan δ) , values in addition to the efficient heat dissipation in order to address these pressing thermal management and electromagnetic wave transmission challenges.…”

Boosting the in-plane thermal conductivity of nanofibrillated cellulose films: alignment engineering of cross-linked AlN whiskers

“…1–3 While this brings forth enhanced functionality, it also results in increasing power consumption and heat generation. 4–6 Due to the detrimental effects of high working temperatures on the stability and reliability of electronic devices, heat dissipation has become one of the significant bottlenecks impeding the rapid progress of electronic technology. The development of high-performance thermal management materials is the key to addressing this issue.…”

Dimension effect on thermal conductivity of hexagonal boron nitride/titanium dioxide reinforced hybrid PEEK composites developed with a scalable compounding approach

“…In contrast to crystalline materials, the conduction of heat energy in a polymeric material is achieved mainly through the phonon transfer process 1 . Since PEEK is a semicrystalline polymer, various interface defects cause scattering of phonons during heat transfer, 2 and as a result, the neat PEEK exhibits a quite low in the range of 0.21–0.25 W/(m.K).…”