Composites of aluminum alloy and magnesium alloy with graphite showing low thermal expansion and high specific thermal conductivity.

High thermal conductivity, low thermal expansion and low density are three important features in novel materials for high performance electronics, mobile applications and aerospace. Spark plasma sintering was used to produce light metal-graphite composites with an excellent combination of these three properties. By adding up to 50 vol.% of macroscopic graphite flakes, the thermal expansion coefficient of magnesium and aluminum alloys was tuned down to zero or negative values, while the specific thermal conductivity was over four times higher than in copper. No degradation of the samples was observed after thermal stress tests and thermal cycling. Tensile strength and hardness measurements proved sufficient mechanical stability for most thermal management applications. For the production of the alloys, both prealloyed powders and elemental mixtures were used; the addition of trace elements to cope with the oxidation of the powders was studied.

The Origin of High Thermal Conductivity and Ultralow Thermal Expansion in Copper-Graphite Composites.

We developed a nanocomposite with highly aligned graphite platelets in a copper matrix. Spark plasma sintering ensured an excellent copper-graphite interface for transmitting heat and stress. The resulting composite has superior thermal conductivity (500 W m(-1) K(-1), 140% of copper), which is in excellent agreement with modeling based on the effective medium approximation. The thermal expansion perpendicular to the graphite platelets drops dramatically from ∼20 ppm K(-1) for graphite and copper separately to 2 ppm K(-1) for the combined structure. We show that this originates from the layered, highly anisotropic structure of graphite combined with residual stress under ambient conditions, that is, strain-engineering of the thermal expansion. Combining excellent thermal conductivity with ultralow thermal expansion results in ideal materials for heat sinks and other devices for thermal management.

Nanoplatelet size to control the alignment and thermal conductivity in copper-graphite composites.

A controlled alignment of graphite nanoplatelets in a composite matrix will allow developing materials with tailored thermal properties. Achieving a high degree of alignment in a reproducible way, however, remains challenging. Here we demonstrate the alignment of graphite nanoplatelets in copper composites produced via high-energy ball milling and spark plasma sintering. The orientation of the nanoplatelets in the copper matrix is verified by polarized Raman scattering and electron microscopy showing an increasing order with increasing platelet size. The thermal conductivity k along the alignment direction is up to five times higher than perpendicular to it. The composite with the highest degree of alignment has a thermal diffusivity (100 mm(2) s(-1)) comparable to copper (105 mm(2) s(-1)) but is 20% lighter. By modeling the thermal properties of the composites within the effective medium approximation we show that (i) the Kapitza resistance is not a limiting factor for improving the thermal conductivity of a copper-graphite system and (ii) copper-graphite-nanoplatelet composites may be expected to achieve a higher thermal conductivity than copper upon further refinement.