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Research Article

High-performance thermal interface materials enabled by vertical alignment of lightweight and soft graphene foams

Huaqiang Fu1,2,§, Renqiang Fang3,§, Chao Tian1, Wei Qian2, Shiya Cao1, Ziran Zhang3, Xiaoxi Xu1, Chuang Yao4, Zhe Wang5( ), Daping He1,2( )
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
Hubei Engineering Research Center of RF-Microwave Technology and Application, School of Science, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
School of Materials and Microelectronics, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
Shanghai Institute of Satellite Engineering, Shanghai 201109, China
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China

§ Huaqiang Fu and Renqiang Fang contributed equally to this work.

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Graphical Abstract

Two-dimensional graphene materials are fabricated into lightweight and soft graphene foams as vertical fillers within epoxy resin to optimize the out-plane thermal conductivity and contact thermal resistance.

Abstract

High-performance thermal interface materials (TIMs) are highly sought after for modern electronics. Two-dimensional (2D) materials as vertical aligned fillers can optimize the out-plane thermal conductivity (k⊥), but their excessively high content or intrinsic rigidness deteriorate TIMs softness, leading to worsening for thermal contact resistance (Rcontact). In this study, 2D graphene materials are fabricated into lightweight and soft graphene foams (GFs) with high-orientation, acting as vertical filler frameworks to optimize the k⊥ and Rcontact for vertical GF (VGF) TIMs. The VGF-TIM has a high k⊥ of 47.9 W·m−1·K−1 at a low graphene content of 15.5 wt.%. Due to the softness and low filler contents of GFs, the VGF-TIM exhibits a low compressive module (4.2 MPa), demonstrating excellent compressibility. The resulting TIM exhibit a low contact resistance of 24.4 K·mm2·W−1, demonstrating 185.1% higher cooling efficiency in practical heat dissipating scenario compared to commercial advanced TIMs. This work provides guidelines for the design of advanced TIMs and their applications in thermal management.

Keywords

graphenefoamthermal resistancethermal conductivitythermal interface materials

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Nano Research
Volume 17 Issue 11,
November 2024
Pages 9293-9299
DOI: 10.1007/s12274-024-6985-7
Cite this article:
Fu H, Fang R, Tian C, et al. High-performance thermal interface materials enabled by vertical alignment of lightweight and soft graphene foams. Nano Research, 2024, 17(11): 9293-9299. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-024-6985-7
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Graphene

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Received: 15 July 2024
Revised: 20 August 2024
Accepted: 24 August 2024
Published: 27 September 2024
© Tsinghua University Press 2024
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