Trend of the development of metal-based heat dissipative materials

Fabrication of high-performance thermal management materials with ultra-high thermal conductivities and low CTEs is important in electronics fields. Recently we have initiated a series of investigations to fabricate such materials and found that metal-matrix composites (MMCs) uniquely fabricated are effective in improving their thermal and strength properties. In our study, to avoid the damage of filler particle surfaces, spark plasma sintering (SPS) processing was used as a processing technique. In this review article, various kinds of filler particle dispersed MMCs are introduced and their thermal properties of composites fabricated by using various methods, such as metal infiltration and vacuum hot pressing, are shown and well documented. This review article leads to strong indications regarding fabrication techniques for making better thermal management composites. Our SPS method is compared in terms of materials qualities to those fabricated by other fabrication techniques.