Liquid-infused nanostructured composite as a high-performance thermal interface material for effective cooling
Rui Cheng, Qixian Wang, Zexiao Wang, Lin Jing, Ana Garcia Caraveo, Zhuo Li, Yibai Zhong, Xiu Liu, Xiao Luo, Tianyi Huang, Hyeong Seok Yun, Hakan Salihoglu, Loren Russell, Navid Kazem, Tianyi Chen, Sheng Shen
Abstract
Effective heat dissipation remains a grand challenge for energy-dense devices and systems. As heterogeneous integration becomes increasingly inevitable in electronics, thermal resistance at interfaces has emerged as a critical bottleneck for thermal management. However, existing thermal interface solutions are constrained by either high thermal resistance or poor reliability. We report a strategy to create printable, high-performance liquid-infused nanostructured composites, comprising a mechanically soft and thermally conductive double-sided Cu nanowire array scaffold infused with a customized thermal-bridge liquid that suppresses contact thermal resistance. The liquid infusion concept is versatile for a broad range of thermal interface applications. Remarkably, the liquid metal infused nanostructured composite exhibits an ultra-low thermal resistance <1 mm² K W-1 at interface, outperforming state-of-the-art thermal interface materials on chip-cooling. The high reliability of the nanostructured composites enables undegraded performance through extreme temperature cycling. We envision liquid-infused nanostructured composites as a universal thermal interface solution for cooling applications in data centers, GPU/CPU systems, solid-state lasers, and LEDs. Thermal resistance at interfaces is a critical bottleneck for the thermal management of electronic devices. Here, authors report a high-performance liquid-infused nanostructured composite with thermal resistance under 1 mm² K W−1 and reliability for advanced electronic cooling.