Development and Characterization of Graphene Enhanced Thermal Conductive Adhesives

Paper in proceeding, 2016

In this paper, a graphene enhanced thermal conductive adhesive (G-TCA) was developed for thermal management of power devices. The developed G-TCA has many advantages, including high thermal conductivity, lower density, good dispensing ability. and cost effective. To fabricate G-TCAs. few-layer graphene was utilized as fillers to improve the thermal conductivity of the TCA. The graphene nanosheets were fabricated through a high-speed shear mixing process in a mixed solvent. Compared to many reported liquid exfoliation process, the graphene fabrication process shows many advantages, such as high process efficiency, mass production, low-cost, clean and safe process. G-TCA sample with a hybrid filler ratio of 73% Ag and 3% graphene shows the highest thermal conductivity of 8 W/m K, which is almost four times higher than reference TCAs. A Joule heating setup was built to simulate G-TCA's function in a real electronic component and demonstrate the superior heat dissipation properties of the G-TCAs. Viscosities of the G-TCA samples were regulated in an acceptable range of many dispensing processes to be able to make uniform and fine patterns. Therefore, the developed G-TCA could be widely used for thermal management of power devices and electronic packaging area to decrease their working temperatures and extend the lifetime of devices.