Improving the Thermal Performance of Liquid Metal Thermal Interface Materials: The Role of Intermetallic Compounds at the Gallium/Copper Interface
Abstract Room‐temperature liquid metal has been widely used in electronic packaging due to its high thermal conductivity, but its thermal performance is strongly impeded by the dominated thermal boundary resistance between liquid metal and solid material. Here, first an order‐of‐magnitude reduction...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Wiley-VCH
2025-06-01
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| Series: | Advanced Materials Interfaces |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1002/admi.202500041 |
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| author | Xudong Zhang Yuxia Dong Yanzheng Du Lei Yang Weigang Ma Bingyang Cao |
| author_facet | Xudong Zhang Yuxia Dong Yanzheng Du Lei Yang Weigang Ma Bingyang Cao |
| author_sort | Xudong Zhang |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract Room‐temperature liquid metal has been widely used in electronic packaging due to its high thermal conductivity, but its thermal performance is strongly impeded by the dominated thermal boundary resistance between liquid metal and solid material. Here, first an order‐of‐magnitude reduction of thermal boundary resistance (from 1.11 × 10−7 (m2·K)/W to 6.94 × 10−9 (m2·K)/W) is reported by self‐synthesizing the intermetallic compound at the liquid gallium/solid copper interface. This significant thermal transport improvement is attributed to the conversion of heat carriers from phonons to electrons, and bonding force from van der Waals force to metallic bond, which is thoroughly analyzed by the microscopic phonon and electron diffuse mismatch models, complemented by molecular dynamic simulations. Chip application demonstrates that brushing liquid metal assisted by the intermetallic compound can surprisingly obtain the equivalent interfacial temperature difference (10.2 °C) to that of InSn solder welding (8.3 °C), which is much smaller than that of the conventional oxidation method (30.1 °C). This study provides a comprehensive understanding of electron/phonon transport at Ga/Cu interfaces and facilitates the giant thermal transport enhancement of liquid metal thermal interface material. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-e8b5df303cee41d8911775f8bd84c10f |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 2196-7350 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-06-01 |
| publisher | Wiley-VCH |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Advanced Materials Interfaces |
| spelling | doaj-art-e8b5df303cee41d8911775f8bd84c10f2025-08-20T03:11:06ZengWiley-VCHAdvanced Materials Interfaces2196-73502025-06-011211n/an/a10.1002/admi.202500041Improving the Thermal Performance of Liquid Metal Thermal Interface Materials: The Role of Intermetallic Compounds at the Gallium/Copper InterfaceXudong Zhang0Yuxia Dong1Yanzheng Du2Lei Yang3Weigang Ma4Bingyang Cao5Key Laboratory for Thermal Science and Power Engineering of Ministry of Education Department of Engineering Mechanics Tsinghua University Beijing 100084 ChinaKey Laboratory for Thermal Science and Power Engineering of Ministry of Education Department of Engineering Mechanics Tsinghua University Beijing 100084 ChinaKey Laboratory for Thermal Science and Power Engineering of Ministry of Education Department of Engineering Mechanics Tsinghua University Beijing 100084 ChinaKey Laboratory for Thermal Science and Power Engineering of Ministry of Education Department of Engineering Mechanics Tsinghua University Beijing 100084 ChinaKey Laboratory for Thermal Science and Power Engineering of Ministry of Education Department of Engineering Mechanics Tsinghua University Beijing 100084 ChinaKey Laboratory for Thermal Science and Power Engineering of Ministry of Education Department of Engineering Mechanics Tsinghua University Beijing 100084 ChinaAbstract Room‐temperature liquid metal has been widely used in electronic packaging due to its high thermal conductivity, but its thermal performance is strongly impeded by the dominated thermal boundary resistance between liquid metal and solid material. Here, first an order‐of‐magnitude reduction of thermal boundary resistance (from 1.11 × 10−7 (m2·K)/W to 6.94 × 10−9 (m2·K)/W) is reported by self‐synthesizing the intermetallic compound at the liquid gallium/solid copper interface. This significant thermal transport improvement is attributed to the conversion of heat carriers from phonons to electrons, and bonding force from van der Waals force to metallic bond, which is thoroughly analyzed by the microscopic phonon and electron diffuse mismatch models, complemented by molecular dynamic simulations. Chip application demonstrates that brushing liquid metal assisted by the intermetallic compound can surprisingly obtain the equivalent interfacial temperature difference (10.2 °C) to that of InSn solder welding (8.3 °C), which is much smaller than that of the conventional oxidation method (30.1 °C). This study provides a comprehensive understanding of electron/phonon transport at Ga/Cu interfaces and facilitates the giant thermal transport enhancement of liquid metal thermal interface material.https://doi.org/10.1002/admi.202500041bonding strengthelectron transportliquid metalthermal conductancethermal interface material |
| spellingShingle | Xudong Zhang Yuxia Dong Yanzheng Du Lei Yang Weigang Ma Bingyang Cao Improving the Thermal Performance of Liquid Metal Thermal Interface Materials: The Role of Intermetallic Compounds at the Gallium/Copper Interface Advanced Materials Interfaces bonding strength electron transport liquid metal thermal conductance thermal interface material |
| title | Improving the Thermal Performance of Liquid Metal Thermal Interface Materials: The Role of Intermetallic Compounds at the Gallium/Copper Interface |
| title_full | Improving the Thermal Performance of Liquid Metal Thermal Interface Materials: The Role of Intermetallic Compounds at the Gallium/Copper Interface |
| title_fullStr | Improving the Thermal Performance of Liquid Metal Thermal Interface Materials: The Role of Intermetallic Compounds at the Gallium/Copper Interface |
| title_full_unstemmed | Improving the Thermal Performance of Liquid Metal Thermal Interface Materials: The Role of Intermetallic Compounds at the Gallium/Copper Interface |
| title_short | Improving the Thermal Performance of Liquid Metal Thermal Interface Materials: The Role of Intermetallic Compounds at the Gallium/Copper Interface |
| title_sort | improving the thermal performance of liquid metal thermal interface materials the role of intermetallic compounds at the gallium copper interface |
| topic | bonding strength electron transport liquid metal thermal conductance thermal interface material |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1002/admi.202500041 |
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