Thermal contact conductance of diamond-like films

The reliability of electronic components may be improved by enhancing the thermal contact conductance at the interface of the chip and heat-spreader systems with diamond films. This investigation evaluated the effect of diamond-like films on the thermal contact conductance deposited on aluminum 6101-T6 and copper C11000H03 in contact with bare aluminum A356-T61. A rigidizing layer of silicon nitride, 3 /um thick (120 /tin.), was deposited prior to the ion beam diamond-like carbon deposition. For a diamond-like coating deposited on silicon nitride/aluminum 6101-T6 in contact with bare aluminum A356-T61, the thermal contact conductance varied from 145.7 to 1525.6 W/mK (25 to 268.69 Btu/h ft °F) with the highest conductance resulting from the l-/mm(40-/uin.-) thick film. For diamond-like coatings deposited on silicon nitride/copper C11000-H03 in contact with bare aluminum A356-T61, the thermal contact conductance varied from 204.0 to 2031.5 W/mK (35 to 350 Btu/ h ft °F) for the test parameters employed. Similar to diamond-like coatings deposited on silicon nitride/aluminum 6101-T6, the highest conductance was measured for a diamond-like film thickness of 1 /um (40 /uin.) with the conductance significantly decreasing with increasing film thickness.