High thermal conductive copper/diamond composites: state of the art

F. Yang,S. Q. Jia

doi:10.1007/s10853-020-05443-3

Abstract

Copper/diamond composites have drawn lots of attention in the last few decades, due to its potential high thermal conductivity and promising applications in high-power electronic devices. However, the bottlenecks for their practical application are high manufacturing/machining cost and uncontrollable thermal performance affected by the interface characteristics, and the interface thermal conductance mechanisms are still unclear. In this paper, we reviewed the recent research works carried out on this topic, and this primarily includes (1) evaluating the commonly acknowledged principles for acquiring high thermal conductivity of copper/diamond composites that are produced by different processing methods; (2) addressing the factors that influence the thermal conductivity of copper/diamond composites; and (3) elaborating the interface thermal conductance problem to increase the understanding of thermal transferring mechanisms in the boundary area and provide necessary guidance for future designing the composite interface structure. The links between the composite’s interface thermal conductance and thermal conductivity, which are built quantitatively via the developed models, were also reviewed in the last part.

Highlights

Miniaturization of electronic devices makes it challenge to dissipate heat generated during operation
Copper/diamond composites have great potential to lead the generation of heat sink materials for high-power electronic devices use, with potential thermal conductivity [ 500 W/(m K) and a thermal expansion coefficient that is tunable to match with that of chip materials, in the range of 4–6 ppm/K
Their potentially high thermal conductivity is strongly dependent on the quality of the copper/diamond interface, which is disrupted by the poor chemical affinity between the copper and the diamond

Summary

Introduction

Miniaturization of electronic devices makes it challenge to dissipate heat generated during operation. It suggests that there exists an optimal content of carbide-forming additives to obtain a desired thickness of interface layers and high thermal conductivity for the copper/diamond composites. The interface layer with optimal thickness leads to high interface thermal conductance and improves the efficiency of heat transfer from the diamond particles to the copper matrix [34].

Results

Conclusion