Chip cooling with carbon nanotube heat sink

Zhenlong Huang, Taisong Pan, Min Gao*, Yuan Lin*

State Key Laboratory of Electronic Thin Films and Integrated Devices,
University of Electronic Science and Technology of China,
Chengdu, China
linyuan@uestc.edu.cn

Abstract—In this paper, lightweight heat sinks based on
carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are presented. CNTs were attached on
the surface of silicon chips and their heat dissipation
performance were monitored. As the morphology of heat sinks is
an important factor for the heat dissipation efficiency, two types
of CNTs, CNT arrays and sponge CNTs, were used here. Besides,
the influence of airflow on the two kinds of CNTs based heat sink
was observed by controlling the wind speed. This work gives an
excellent reference for a low-cost and high-performance micro-
heat sink in the future.
Keywords—heat sink; CNT arrays; sponge CNTs; heat
dissipation
solution is 2 wt % ferrocene in dimethylbenzene and growth
temperature is 800 ć. For sponge CNTs, the precursor
solution is 2 wt % ferrocene in cyclohexane and growth
temperature is 900 ć. CNT arrays with different length can be
prepared by varying the growth time. In this work, we got the
short CNT arrays and its length is 500 ȝm, long CNT arrays
and its length is 2000 ȝm, sponge CNTs and its length is 2000
ȝm. The morphology of CNTs are shown in figure 1. CNT
arrays grow highly ordered and stand one by one. Yet, sponge
CNTs are flocculent and interconnection. The discrepant
micro-structures will have a big influence on the airflow,
which is an important factor for heat dissipation.

I. INTRODUCTION
With the increase of integrated circuit power density,
problem of heat dissipation is becoming one of the most
serious limitations in the high performance microelectronics.
Some solutions have been tested in the past [1-2], yet more
efforts are needed to develop new and efficient methods or
materials to satisfy the increasing demand. Carbon nanotubes
are hollow tubular structures that can be single or multiple
layers of seamless graphene rolls [3]. Due to the unique
structural feature, CNTs exhibit many excellent vibrational,
optical, mechanical, and thermal properties [4-5]. Ultrahigh FIG. 1. Morphology of carbon nanotubes. (a) The carbon nanotubes
thermal conductivity [5] and large surface area [6] arrays (scale bar: 5 ȝm). (b) The sponge carbon nanotubes (scale bar:
demonstrate their promising applications in heat dissipation of 100 ȝm).
high power density electronic devices. Morphology of CNTs
would be different by controlling the growth condition. The B. Fabrication of silicon chips with CNTs based heat sink
microstructures, which is very important as heat sinks, would
be vertically aligned arrays [7], long fibers [8] or sponge-like As shown in figure 2, a structure was designed to simulate
bulk material [9]. In this paper, two different types of CNTs, the device and study the thermal performance of CNTs based
CNT arrays and sponge CNTs, were got by controlling the heat sinks. A heating electrode was made on one side of the
growth condition. Then we transferred the CNTs on the back silicon substrate and some silver paste was dropped on the
of silicon chips, tested and discussed the different heat other side of the silicon substrate. The size of silicon substrate
dissipation performance for the two kinds of CNTs. is 10mm*10mm*0.5mm. Then CNTs were put on the surface
of silver paste and suitable pressure was forced on the CNTs.
Sample was heated on120 Υ for 20 minutes. At last, a layer of
II. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE polyvinyl chloride was covered on the surface of the heating
electrode to make sure the safety and stability of silicon chips.
A. Growth of carbon nanotubes. Thus a simple silicon chip with CNTs based heat sink has
The floating catalyst chemical vapor deposition (CVD) been finished. By the way described above, three kinds of
method was used to grow CNT arrays and sponge CNTs. samples were made. The only difference among these three
Precursor solution was placed at the entrance of the quartz samples are their heat sinks. One sample’ heat sink is sponge
tube and a SiO2 substrate was put in the middle. When the CNTs, another is short CNT arrays and the last is long CNT
growth began, precursor solution was injected at the speed of arrays. Besides, a bare silicon substrate was used as a
8ml/h and was heated at 200 ć . At the same time, the middle reference to compare the heat dissipation efficiency of these
of the quartz tube was heated to an appropriate temperature for CNTs based heat sinks.
the CNTs’ growth under the production of argon. To get
different CNTs types, precursor solution and growth
temperature were controlled. For CNT arrays, the precursor

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FIG. 2. The structure of silicon chips with CNTs based heat sinks.
C. Heat dissipation testing.
All the experiments were fished at the same temperature
(25 ć ). First, we tested the temperature coefficient of
resistance (TCR) for every heating electrodes. The
temperature of heating chips will be known if the resistance of
heating electrode is got. Thus the electrodes were used as
heating source and temperature sensor at the same time. When
the testing began, all the heaters were given the same heating
power 0.25 W and the resistance of heating electrodes were
monitored. Then temperature of the heating electrodes were
calculated by the TCR. To compare how the airflow influence
the performance of CNTs based heat sinks, wind with
different speeds was forced on the heat sinks.
in figure 4, the temperature rises quickly at first and tends to
be stable when the heating time is long enough. This
phenomenon can be explained by the thermal convection
theory. The intensity of thermal convection is determined by
the temperature difference between heat sinks and
surroundings. At the beginning, the temperature difference
wasn’t big enough to dissipate all the energy got from heating
electrode. Thus some energy, which didn’t loss to the
surroundings, made the chip’ temperature rise. As the time
went on, temperature difference between heat sink and
surroundings became big enough and all the heating power
was dissipated. At this time, the temperature of heating
electrode was stable. We call the stable temperature balanced
temperature. The balanced temperature is a very important
index for the performance of heat sink. The lower is the better.

III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

As shown in figure 3, the resistance of heating electrode
are rising, along with temperature. Especially, there is a linear
ration between the electrode’ resistance and temperature. We
fit the linear ration and express temperature of heating
FIG. 4. The temperature change with time when 100mA current
electrode by equation (1):
is forced on the heater.

7 
R
Where T is the temperature of heating electrode and R is the
resistance of heating electrode.
FIG. 3. Heating electrode resistance change with temperature
We tested the resistance’ change with time when 100mA
current was forced on the heating electrode. Then temperature
of heating electrode was calculated by equation (1). As shown
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To analyze the influence of airflow on heat dissipation,
different wind speeds were forced on the samples at the same
heating power 0.25 W and their balanced temperatures were
got. The results are shown in figure 5. There are four kinds of
samples and their balanced temperature at different wind
speeds are presented in the figure. For single sample, the
balanced temperature drop quickly when a little airflow is
forced on the chips. Yet, little is changed when the wind speed
is big enough. The heat dissipation HIILFLHQF\UDWLRȘLVJLYHQ
by the equation (2):
76L 7&17V
K u  (2)
76L
where TSi is the balanced temperature of bare silicon chip and
TCNTs is the balanced temperature of silicon chip with CNTs
based heat sink. Efficiency ratio means the relative proportion
of heat taken away by CNTs-heat sink structures. We calculate
the efficiency ratio for every kind of CNTs based heat sink
and the results are shown in figure 6. From the results shown
in figure 5 and 6, we know that under natural convection, the
heat sink based on long CNT arrays has the best cooling effect
and temperature on chip is only 61 ć, 19% lower than bare
silicon chip (76 ć). The sponge CNTs have little effect
184
and only 1.9% lower is observed. Even the short CNT arrays
have a better heat dissipation than sponge CNTs and 6.2%
lower temperature is observed. Under forced convection,
temperature for all kinds of samples has an obvious drop.
Specifically, the sponge CNTs are more sensitive to airflow
and temperature drops from 71 ć under natural convection to
41 ć under 2.0 m.s-1 wind, 42% decrease. The temperature on
bare silicon chip decreases by 37%. Besides, with the
aggravation of air convection, temperatures for all the three
kinds of CNTs-heat sink tend to be equal, which is lower than
the bare silicon obviously. The efficiency ratio for both short
CNTs and sponge CNTs rise first and will be stable at last. Yet,
efficiency ratio for long CNT arrays tend to decrease slightly.
FIG. 5. The balanced temperature drop with the increase of wind
speed
FIG. 6. Efficiency ratio change with wind speed for CNTs based heat
sink
CONCLUTION
In summary, CNTs are proved to be potential as a kind of
micro heat sink. The long CNT arrays are a good choice for
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passive cooling for its high heat dissipation efficiency even
under natural convection. Yet, sponge CNTs are not suitable
for heat dissipation if there is no fan. On the other hands, if the
air flow violently, the long CNT arrays are not necessary. Heat
sink based short CNT arrays can become the succedaneum
which is more cost-effective and less space taken up. Besides,
sponge CNTs have their own advantages. Not only sponge
CNTs can get the same heat dissipation effect, but also the
heat sinks based sponge CNTs are more stable for its
flocculent structure. The interconnected structure makes the
sponge CNTs uneasy to fall off, which is very important for
the stability of electric circuit.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work is supported by the National Basic Research
Program of China (973 Program) under Grant No.
2011CB301705, the National Natural Science Foundation of
China (No. 61306015), the Fundamental Research Funds for
the Central Universities of China (No. ZYGX2012J037).
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