The Investigation of the Effect of Filler Sizes in 3D-BN Skeletons on Thermal Conductivity of Epoxy-Based Composites

Zhengdong Wang,Jinkai Wang,Guanglei Wu,Ganqiu Yang,Tong Zhang,Mengli Li

doi:10.3390/nano12030446

Zhengdong Wang, Jinkai Wang + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/nano12030446

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Abstract

Thermally conductive and electrically insulating materials have attracted much attention due to their applications in the field of microelectronics, but through-plane thermal conductivity of materials is still low at present. In this paper, a simple and environmentally friendly strategy is proposed to improve the through-plane thermal conductivity of epoxy composites using a 3D boron nitride (3D-BN) framework. In addition, the effect of filler sizes in 3D-BN skeletons on thermal conductivity was investigated. The epoxy composite with larger BN in lateral size showed a higher through-plane thermal conductivity of 2.01 W/m·K and maintained a low dielectric constant of 3.7 and a dielectric loss of 0.006 at 50 Hz, making it desirable for the application in microelectronic devices.

Highlights

With the rapid development of 5G, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, there is a significant demand for thermally conductive and electrically insulating materials for microelectronic devices, which are suffering from elevated operation temperature [1,2,3,4].This is mainly attributed to the fact that the heat generated from the chip during the operation of microelectronic devices cannot be quickly transferred to the cooling equipment due to a layer of thermal interface materials (TIMs)
The epoxy composites with vertically-oriented BN platelets were obtained
In these kinds of epoxy composites, the BN skeleton via vacuum filtration self-assembly has a three-dimensional network with interconnected structures

Summary

Introduction

With the rapid development of 5G, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, there is a significant demand for thermally conductive and electrically insulating materials for microelectronic devices, which are suffering from elevated operation temperature [1,2,3,4]. The main function of TIMs is to fill the gap between the microelectronic device and the radiator fin so that the interface thermal resistance will be reduced [5] Polymers, such as epoxy resin or silicone rubber, are commonly used as TIMs due to their superior adhesiveness, thermal stability and electrical insulation [6,7]. Their low TC values (below 0.3 W/m·K) cannot satisfy the needs of microelectronic devices. We proposed a technique for permeating the epoxy resin into the 3D-BN skeleton under vacuum conditions This method can ensure that the 3D-BN network frame is fully filled with the epoxy solution to reduce the voids in the composites. The preparation of the polymer composites with 3D-BN is simple, ecofriendly and scalable, and the TIM is promising for practical applications in microelectronic packaging in the generation of electronic devices

Materials

Characterization

Results and Discussion

Thermal Conductivity

Dielectric and Thermal Mechanical Properties

Conclusions