NANOTECHNOLOGY MATERIALS FOR HEAT SINK

Nathan Otundo Onsare

1*​
​Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, IUPUI, 420 University Blvd. Indianapolis, IN

Email: n​ onsare@iupui.edu

ABSTRACT

The power density of electronic packages has substantially increased. The thermal interface resistance involves
more than 50% of the total thermal resistance in current high-power packages. The portion of the thermal budget
spent on interface resistance is growing because die-level power dissipation densities are projected to exceed 100
W/cm2 in near future. There is an urgent need for advanced thermal interface materials (TIMs) that would achieve
order-of-magnitude improvement in performance.
Carbon nanotubes have received significant attention in the past because of its small diameter and high thermal
conductivity. The present study is intended to overcome the shortcomings of commercially used thermal interface
materials by introducing a compliant material which would conform to the mating surfaces and operate at higher
temperatures.

Keywords: ​Thermal Interface Materials (TIM), Nanotechnology.

1 INTRODUCTION

Thermal dissipation is a key issue in electronic packaging design. Ineffective thermal dissipation
inside packages can result in not only delamination failure between different layers but
reduce life cycle of the packages. Compared with traditional TIM, carbon nanotube (CNT)
has excellent and thermal properties, and is now attracted more attention of researchers as a
TIM to dissipate heat from die to heat sink in electronic packaging.

A number of electronic applications require the efficient conduction of heat. The structure and
properties of carbon nanotubes make it an ideal choice for future nano-scale circuits. Theoretical
calculations using various models have predicted Carbon Nanotubes to have very high thermal

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conductivity. Molecular Dynamic Simulations (MDS) [1] have calculated the thermal
conductivity of an isolated SWNT to be 6.6x10^4 W/m-K while phonon spectrum analysis [3] of
SWNTs have found the thermal conductivity to be 6x10^4 W/m-K. Also, a modified empirical
potential calculations [2] showed that the thermal conductivity of a few nanotubes to be 3x10^4
W/m-K. Experimental measurements on a lithographically fabricated single Multi-Walled
Carbon Nanotube (MWNT) yielded comparable results [3]. However, a majority of the carbon
nanotube thermal applications will be using a large number of nanotubes and, most likely, as a
thin film. A few direct experimental studies on carbon nanotube mats and bundles [4] have
determined the thermal conductivity of the sample to be 10 to 100 orders of magnitude less than
calculated values. These thermal conductivity measurements are all along the axis of the
Nanotubes.

2. Basics of CNTs

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are honeycomb-like (i.e., hexagonally shaped) arrangements of

carbon atoms that are rolled into cylindrical tubes with diameters as small as a few atoms wide
and aspect ratios as high as 105.

Figure 1: Three possible carbon nanotube atomic structures

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CNTs can be produced from a wide variety of processes, such as arc-discharge, laser ablation
and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) methods (Figure 2).

Figure 2

However, for device applications, growth of CNTs by CVD methods is particularly attractive,
due to features such as selective spatial growth, large area deposition capabilities, and aligned
CNT growth.

2. Improved Properties of CNT

Thermal conductivity is the material’s ability to conduct heat. Thermal resistance is a measure of
how a material of a specific thickness resists the flow of heat. Thermal conductivity and thermal
resistance describe heat transfer within a material once heat has entered the material [6]. Thermal
conductivity of TIM changes with temperature. When temperature increases, surface contacts
between two surfaces where TIM are applied could be better or worse, and consequently the
thermal resistance variation of a package may increase or decrease.

CNT BASED COOLER

The three CNTs in Figure 3 have some of the most promising thermal performance
characteristics. The first is the one-sided interface structure discussed above. The second is the

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two-sided configuration, which consists of CNT arrays adhered to surfaces on both sides of the
interface and brought together mechanically using van der Waals. The third structure comprises
vertically oriented CNT arrays directly and simultaneously synthesized on both sides of thin foil
substrates that are inserted into an interface. The CNT-coated foil structures serve as a method
for applying CNT arrays to interfaces between heat sinks and devices that would experience
damage from exposure to the high temperatures normally required for high-quality CNT growth
(above 700°C).

Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) processes that are common in the electronics industry
enables the growth of various substrates such as silicon, silicon carbide, copper, and aluminum
that are important for thermal management applications [1] on CNT arrays interfaces as shown in
Figure 3.

Figure 3. (a) One-sided interface; (b) Two-sided interface, (c) example of CNT- coated
foil interface, (d) CNT arrays on both sides of 25 µm-thick Al foil.

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HEAT TRANSFER THROUGH CNTs

Figure 4

One-sided CNTs are most active and they are grown directly on one substrate with CNT free
ends in contact with an opposing substrate.

Several CNT contacts at both substrates form parallel heat flow paths within the framework of
the thermal network for heat flow. This network shows thermal resistances resolved at the
individual nanotube level for true CNT-substrate interfaces, both at the growth substrate and at
the opposing interface.

Means of Simulations

Simulations show that establishment of covalent bonds between CNT and mating surfaces have a
great potential to reduce thermal contact resistance [5]. Furthermore, the length of CNT is most
critical factor in bulk thermal conductivity of a CNT-polymer composite, i.e. to span the bond
line by single tubes. Filler content and bending of CNT are no critical factors [7].

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Schematic of heat dissipation from CNTs to SiO2 in a vertical CNT array heat sinks with native
SiO2 layer on Si wafer

1. Molecular dynamics simulations

Molecular dynamics simulation methods were used for investigation of the heat transfer in
nanomaterials.

Molecular Dynamics model of CNT

The approach is used to get the thermal conductivity λ, with a periodic array of hot and cold
regions along the nanotube achieved by velocity. Nanotubes exhibit high degree of long range
order over hundreds of nanometers. The uneasiness imposed by the heat transfer reduce the
effective phonon mean free path to below the unit cell size where it is hard to achieve
convergence, since the phonon mean free path in nanotubes is significantly larger than unit cell
sizes tractable in molecular dynamics simulations.

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To determine the thermal conductivity, equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations is used
based on the Green-Kubo expression that relates this quantity to the integral over time t of the
heat flux autocorrelation function by;

Outcomes of simulations

In Figure 5 the results of in-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations for the thermal
conductance of a nanotube aligned along the z axis. Results suggested that Jz(t) converges within
the rst few picoseconds to its limiting value in the temperatures range below 400 K.

Figure 5

In Figure 6, the average of which is proportional to the thermal conductivity λ. Molecular

dynamics simulations are performed for a total time length of 25 ps to represent well the
long-time behavior.

Results for the temperature dependence of the thermal conductivity of a carbon nanotube, shown
in Fig. 6, show the fact that is proportional to the heat capacity C and the phonon mean free path.
Calculations suggest that at T = 100 K, carbon nanotubes show an unusually high thermal
conductivity value of 37,000 W/m-K.

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 Figure 6.

Results of calculations, shown in Figure 7, suggest that the nanotube shows a very similar
thermal transport behavior as a hypothetical isolated graphene mono-layer, whereas even larger
thermal conductivity should be expected for a monolayer than for a nanotube.

Figure 7.

Combined results of equilibrium and in-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations with

accurate carbon potentials determine the thermal conductivity λ of carbon nanotubes and its
dependence on temperature. Results show high value λ≈6,600 W/m-K for a nanotube at room
temperature, compared to the thermal conductivity of a hypothetical graphene monolayer or
graphite. These high values of λ are associated with the large phonon mean free paths in the
systems.

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 Figure 8

Other Materials

Aluminum

It has a thermal conductivity of 226W/m-K. The production of aluminum heat sinks is

inexpensive; they can be made using extrusion because of its softness, aluminum can also be
milled quickly; die-casting and even cold forging are also possible. Aluminum is also very light
thus, an aluminum heat sink will put less stress on its mounting when the unit is moved around.

Copper

Thermal conductivity is about twice as high as aluminum - about 402W/m-K. This makes it a
good material for heat-sinks. Its disadvantages include high weight, high price, and less choice as
far as production methods are concerned. Copper heat-sinks can be milled, die-cast, or made of
copper plates bonded together; extrusion is not possible.

To combine the advantages of aluminum and copper, heat-sinks can be made of aluminum and
copper bonded together. Here, the area in contact with the heat source is made of copper, which
helps lead the heat away to the outer parts of the heat-sink. If the thermal transfer between the
copper and the aluminum is poor, the copper embedding may do more harm than good.

Silver

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Has an even higher thermal conductivity than copper, but only by about 10%. This does not
justify the much higher price for heat-sink production - however, pulverized silver is a common
ingredient in high-end thermal compounds.

The table below shows thermal conductivity of various materials.

CONCLUSION

Carbon nanotubes are endowed with exceptionally high material properties, very close to their
theoretical limits. A combination of these impressive properties enables a whole new variety of
useful and beneficial applications

Thermal interface materials based on aligned CNT in a polymer matrix are promising candidates
to provide competitive solutions for high power applications.

Although theoretical predictions show that carbon nanotubes have extremely high thermal
conductivity, these computations are all based on CNTs with assumed perfect atomic structures,
which are very difficult to achieve by current technology. The experiments works reporting high
measurement thermal conductivity values of CNT are normally performed using short and single
CNTs. It’s reasonable that these values are much higher than those results measured for CNT

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films or composites. Moreover, the contact thermal resistances between nanotubes and other
substances are very high and cause the low overall performance of the materials. As for the
interconnect application, CNTs have been proved to have better thermal stability over traditional
metals. However the obstacles are the non-ideal crystal structure of CNTs resulting from current
CVD technologies, which lead to relatively high resistivity of such, interconnects.

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