Double-sided tin nanowire arrays for advanced thermal interface materials

This investigation examines a type of thermal interface material (TIM) based on a double-sided array of tin nanowires (NWs) prepared using a hot-pressing approach with the assistance of anodic aluminum oxide templates. The metal based TIM effectively reduces the contact resistance, while the flexible nanowires show excellent mechanical compliance to increase the actual contact area with the mating rough surfaces. The results indicate that the overall thermal contact resistance of the two rough copper surfaces assisted by the tin NW array, can reduce the overall resistance to 29 mm(2)KW(-1) at 0.25 MPa and 20 mm(2)KW(-1) at 1.0 MPa. (C) 2013 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4791575]