The Most Thermally conductive Material

[redwraith94]

I came across this a while back, It is Isotopically enriched (Carbon 12) synthetic diamond; about 50% more conductive than 'normal' synthetic diamond:

3300 Wm/K

By reduction of the .sup.13C content of single crystal and polycrystalline diamond from 1.1% (as found in natural diamond and naturally occurring diamond precursors) to 0.001% .sup.13C the thermal conductivity at room temperature was found to increase from 2000 W/mK (in natural isotope diamond) to 3300 W/mK in isotopically enriched diamond (U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,540,904, 5,360,479 and 5,419,276). (http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-adv.htm&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&S1=(apollo.ASNM.+AND+diamond)&OS=an/apollo+AND+diamond&RS=(AN/apollo+AND+diamond)

I dunno how much the Isotopically enriched methane precursor costs, but Apollo's normal growth method costs just 5 dollars per carrot:

At the moment, the company is producing 10-millimeter wafers but predicts it will reach an inch square by year's end and 4 inches in five years. The price per carat: about $5. (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/diamond_pr.html)

[MattNo5ss]

Not bad at all. Pretty cheap too!

I think Graphene has a W/mk in the high 4000s/low 5000s.

I wonder how much TIM made of either of these would cost...

[Trottel]

Not bad at all. Pretty cheap too!

I think Graphene has a W/mk in the high 4000s/low 5000s.

I wonder how much TIM made of either of these would cost...

A TIM made out of this does not mean it would be good. I think a heatsink made of copper heatpipes and synthetic diamond for the base and fins would be cool though.

[MattNo5ss]

AS5 and IC7 work better than any other TIM I've tried and they are made from silver and diamond. IC7 worked better than AS5 and diamond > silver in thermal conductivity, so it seems like a correlation to me. I don't see why a TIM made of those would be bad.

[Mark620]

Small Grain size in a TIM is needed.
The smaller the particle the better.
So a great thermal conductor may not
make a good TIM...

[modey3]

Diamond wouldn't be a good material to use in a heat-sink even though its conductive. The manufacturing costs would be atrocious because the only way you could manufacture one is by sintering it, which would be a big challenge. You could try to use it as a contact material within a paste-like medium, but why not just you good ol' indium as your contact material. Indium is used all the time in cryogenic pumps or in situations where good thermal contact is needed.

modey3

[modey3]

Diamond wouldn't be a good material to use in a heat-sink even though its conductive. The manufacturing costs would be atrocious because the only way you could manufacture one is by sintering it, which would be a big challenge. You could try to use it as a contact material within a paste-like medium, but why not just you good ol' indium as your contact material. Indium is used all the time in cryogenic pumps or in situations where good thermal contact is needed.

modey3