Covalent Anchoring of Carbon Nanotube-Based Thermal Interface Materials Using Epoxy-Silane Monolayers

With the ever increasing demand for improved thermal management solutions in modern electronic devices, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been suggested as a candidate material for thermal interface materials (TIMs). However, the interfacial resistance between CNTs and matching substrate is huge due to poor interaction at the interface. With the help of chemical functionalization, these materials can be exploited to their full potential in TIM applications. By utilizing the epoxy-silane-based monolayers, covalent anchoring can be obtained between the CNTs and target substrate in order to bridge the interface, where high resistances, otherwise, would arise. To adapt CNT arrays to the epoxy chemistry, the CNTs have subsequently been subjected to nitrogen plasma in order to activate them with amino groups. The thermal interfaces were measured, and the thermal resistance was found to be decreased by 5% in comparison with the reference samples.