On the relationship between contact heat resistance and deformation of vertically aligned carbon nanotube film

Abstract

This paper describes an experimental study on contact mechanics and the thermal contact resistance of densely-packed vertically aligned CNTs (VACNTs). We focused on CNTs as thermal interface material (TIM) . The usual contact interfaces of solids have small gaps, which are blanked by the surface roughness. Replacing the heat-insulating air by heat-conductive TIM is essential to achieve sufficient heat flow through the contact interfaces. VACNTs showed excellent performance due to the high intrinsic thermal conductivity and flexibility of the individual CNTs, which enables high conformability mating with rough surfaces. The aim of this study is to understand experimentally the relationships between contact characteristics and contact thermal resistance of VACNTs. The study include mainly the experimental results by interferometric method to measure the mean gap between CNT (length : 1000 nm) and transparent glass and steady state longitudinal heat flow method with specially made sharp rods for measurement of thermal conductivity through real contact area.