the neat thing about gold leaf is when it is burnished onto say the bottom of a heatsink it sticks like crazy.
How come? It has to do with the sharing of valence electrons, I'm pretty sure about this. But been wrong before. Anyways the theory here would be that those two materials are then very close together. Now If the two mating surfaces (cpu, heatsink, ) were really true, and you could somehow gaurentee that the gold would be allowed to fill the gap, with sufficient pressure and extreme cleanliness I think the gold would be a better themal bridge than the paste.
How come? It has to do with the sharing of valence electrons, I'm pretty sure about this. But been wrong before. Anyways the theory here would be that those two materials are then very close together. Now If the two mating surfaces (cpu, heatsink, ) were really true, and you could somehow gaurentee that the gold would be allowed to fill the gap, with sufficient pressure and extreme cleanliness I think the gold would be a better themal bridge than the paste.