Evaluation of a thermal interface material fabricated using thermocompression bonding of carbon nanotube turf

Abstract

In this work a thermal interface material fabricated by thermocompression bonding of vertically aligned carbon nanotube turf (VACNT) to metallized substrates was characterized. The VACNT structure was fabricated onto silicon substrates using chemical vapor deposition. The structures were then transferred to metallized substrates using thermocompression bonding. The resulting structure consisted of VACNT turf sandwiched between two layers of Au. Two configurations of VACNT, full coverage and patterned, were fabricated and tested. In addition, the thermal interface resistance of structures at intermediate steps in the thermocompression bonding process were measured. For the full coverage turf a thermal interface resistance of 1.082 cm(2) degrees C W(-1) at an applied load of 1 N was measured, while a thermal interface resistance of 0.044 cm(2) degrees C W(-1) at a load of 1 N was measured for the patterned turf configuration.

Solder–Graphite Network Composite Sheets as High-Performance Thermal Interface Materials

“…A very high value of the thermal conductivity [67 W/(m K)] has been reported for tin nanowires, but the thermal contact conductance for tin nanowires [5.0 9 10 4 W/(m 2 K)] is less than that [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][55][56][57] and nanofibers 58 have received much recent attention in relation to their potential as TIMs. A thermal contact conductance of 1.6 9 10 4 W/(m 2 K) has been reported for a carbon nanotube adhesive grease.…”

“…Yet another example is a carbon nanotube array, with the direction of the nanotubes being perpendicular to the plane of the sheet. [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] However, carbon nanotube arrays suffer from high material cost and processing complexity, which stems from the fact that the nanotubes need to grow from a suitable substrate at a sufficiently high temperature. Due to the large thickness of a thermal interface sheet (e.g., 7 lm to 510 lm 11 ) compared with a layer of thermal paste (e.g., 0.2 lm to 7 lm 21 ), high thermal conductivity in the through-thickness direction of the sheet is more important for a thermal interface sheet than a thermal paste.…”

Investigation on Carbon Nanotubes as Thermal Interface Material Bonded With Liquid Metal Alloy

“…However, even in this arrangement CNT TIMs demonstrated limited performance due to the presence of high thermal contact resistance between the CNT tips and opposing surfaces [13][14][15]. In order to mitigate such contact resistance, different methods have been tried for bonding the CNT tips to the opposing surface, including metallic film bonding [6,8,9,13,[15][16][17][18], palladium nanoparticle bonding [19], and other chemical bonding methods [1,4,20].…”

Characterization of a liquid–metal microdroplet thermal interface material

“…A thermal interface resistance as low as 19.8 mm 2 K W À1 has been reported [10]. The thermal contact resistance can be reduced by coating the tips of the CNTs with metals [5], or by using thermocompression bonding of CNTs [12].…”