Metal Nanowire Based Thermal Interface Materials
AssigneeCarnegie Mellon University
InventorsShen Sheng, Gong Wei, Li Pengfei
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Abstract
A high-performance thermal interface material comprising a heterogeneous copper-tin nanowire array that is ultra-compliant and that can reduce thermal resistance by two times as compared with the state-of-the-art thermal interface materials. The high-performance thermal interface material can be further used in electronic systems, ranging from microelectronics to portable electronics to massive data centers, to operate at lower temperatures, or at the same temperature but with higher performance and higher power density.
Claims20
A thermal interface layer comprising:
- a seed layer of copper;
- and
- a plurality of vertically aligned nanowires having a copper portion and a tin portion grown on the seed layer.
A process for creating a thermal interface layer comprising a plurality of nanowires comprising:
- depositing an adhesion layer and a seed layer of copper on a first substrate;
- attaching a nanoporous template on the seed layer;
- placing the substrate and the nanoporous template into a copper electroplating bath until the desired height of a copper segment of the nanowires is achieved;
- and
- placing the first substrate and the nanoporous template into a tin electroplating bath until the desired overall height of the nanowires is achieved.
A process for bonding a thermal interface layer between a first substrate and a second substrate comprising:
- placing a layer of vertically aligned nanowires having a copper portion and a tin portion between the first and the second substrates such that the copper portion of each nanowire is adjacent the first substrate and the tin portion of each nanowire is adjacent the second substrate;
- heating the second substrate to a temperature above the melting point of tin such that the tin portion of each nanowire melts into micron-sized particles;
- and
- compressing the first and the second substrates together such that a solid layer of tin is formed between the copper portions of the nanowires and a surface of the second substrate.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.