Pitspawn (Jun 30, 2001 07:17 p.m.):
WOW something beats Silver. Hmmm, bit expensive to turn it into a heatsink though.
Diamond
Looks like modified diamond has a whopping 50kelvin transfer compared to silvers 4.1kelvin. Nice, thats like zero resistance.
But hey, its not impossible. I saw a program where I learnt that you can actually grow diamond so to speak. In a controlled environment, faked clone diamond can be produced with a discolouration at almost no cost. If the hsf companyies start using diamond then we will never have to worry about heat transfer problems again!!!
Artificial diamonds are not that easy to produce. Yes they are cheap if you want one the size of a grain of sand, but to make one the size needed for a sink or cold plate would probably cost more than buying a natural one.
Artificial diamonds are made by pressurizing carbon dust to about 1000 atmospheres pressure and heating to about 2000 C. The carbon is then left to crystalize in diamond, the longer you leave it the larger the diamonds willl be. I belive the largest made so far is about the size of a small grape.
If only someone could come up with a new process !!! Diamond is the best engineering material on the planet, apparently it is so strong and light you could build a tower so high it would reach into low earth orbit.
P.S. Thermal conductivity of diamond is 2000 W/mK, silver is 418 W/mK, copper 385 W/mK, Gold 301 W/mK and Aluminium 189 W/mK
P.P.S. Titanium is 17 W/mK, perhaps not a good choice for a heat sink
