Graphitic Foam Thermal Management Materials for Electronic Packaging

The goal of this program is to utilize the recently developed high conductivity carbon foam for thermal management in electronics (heat exchangers and heat sinks). The technique used to fabricate the foam produces mesophase pitch-based graphitic foam with extremely high thermal conductivity and an open-celled structure. The thermal properties of the foam have been increased by 79% from 106 to 187 W/m·K at a density of 0.56 g/cm³ through process optimization. It has been demonstrated that when the high-thermal-conductivity graphitic foam is utilized as the core material for the heat exchanger, the effective heat transfer can be increased by at least an order of magnitude compared to traditional designs. A once-through-foam core/aluminum-plated heat exchanger has been fabricated for testing in electronic modules for power inverters.