Infrared Imaging Microscope as an Effective Tool for Measuring Thermal Resistance of Emerging Interface Materials

Abstract

The reduction of interfacial resistance continues to be a significant challenge in thermal management of semiconductor and other microscale devices. Current state-of-the-art thermal interface materials (TIMs) have resistances in the range of 5–10 mm2·K/W. At these values, particularly for the emerging highly nonhomogeneous materials, standard measurement techniques often fail to provide accurate results. This paper describes the use of infrared microscopy for measuring the total thermal resistance across multiple interfaces. The method is capable of measuring samples of wide ranging resistances with thicknesses ranging from 50–250 μm. This steady-state technique has several advantages over other methods, including the elimination of the need for intrusive temperature monitoring devices like thermocouples at the area of interest and the need for a priori knowledge of the specific heat and density of the materials of interest, as in the transient techniques for determining thermal resistances. Results for three different commercially available TIM and uncertainty analysis are presented.

Evaluating Broader Impacts of Nanoscale Thermal Transport Research

“…Substantial developments in metrology over the past few decades have allowed quantification of the thermal properties of the individual materials comprising the device (ranging from the silicon device layer to thermal interface materials and packaging materials), interface thermal resistances between materials, and spatial mapping of deviceand package-level temperatures, all of which are crucial for predicting and understanding thermal transport within microelectronic devices. A range of techniques including the thermoreflectance [143][144][145][146], infrared microscopy [147][148][149], 3ω and related techniques Downloaded by [New York University] at 07: 56 12 June 2015 [150], and photoacoustic methods [151] have contributed strongly to the precise measurement of these properties. These methods have demonstrated the effective reduction of the thermal conductivity of silicon at the nanoscale, when the feature size [152] or the dimensions of the hot spot [153] are on the order of the phonon mean free path.…”

Advanced thermal management technologies for defense electronics

“…A selected bibliography of NTI team publications is included in this paper [31][32][33][34][35][36][37].…”

High-Quality Vertically Aligned Carbon Nanotubes for Applications as Thermal Interface Materials

“…The total thermal resistance across the Si/VACNT/Cu was measured using an infrared (IR) thermal imaging setup [35]. The system used is Infrascope II IR Microscope which produces a temperature map of 256 × 256 pixels with a spatial resolution up to 3 µm and a temperature sensitivity of 0.1°C.…”