Heat Conduction Enhancement of a Thermal Interface Material for Heat Sink Applications Using Carbon Nanomaterials

We report on the enhancement of the heat transfer of a commercial thermal compound after incorporation of certain carbon nanomaterials. Carbon nanotubes and carbon nanospheres, characterized by transmission electron microscopy, were diffused in a thermal epoxy compound following a precisely developed protocol based on sonication. The heat transmission of these fabricated thermal interface materials was tested using a setup designed to monitor heat dissipation and transmission to the cooling system under simulated operating conditions of standard electronic components. The data were recorded every 10 seconds by an in house built data acquisition system controlled by LabVIEW software. The effect of the amount of the carbon nanomaterials incorporated in the thermal interface compound was investigated, including reproducibility of the recorded results. The incorporation of the carbon nanomaterials showed an improvement in the thermal properties of the fabricated thermal interface materials. The highest achieved heat transfer has been measured for thermal interface materials fabricated with 1% of carbon nanomaterials corresponding to a maximum temperature drop of 2 °C. In addition, the thermal resistance of the thermal interface material used was characterized by the steady state approach. The measurements revealed lowest thermal resistance values of 80.14 and 100.9 mm2K/W corresponding to the thermal interface materials containing 1% of carbon nanotubes and carbon nanospheres respectively. The aim was to incorporate the new developed thermal interface materials in the low voltage power supply electronics as part of the upgrade of the ATLAS detector at CERN, and to be integrated in electronic devices in general in order to protect the important electronic components from damage and overheating and thus expand their life span.