Graphene-enhanced heat apreaders for electronics

Important results from the project

The project goals are to demonstrate graphene-enhanced heat spreaders to meet the demand for lightweight yet more efficient cooling systems in next-generation electronics, especially in mobile electronics and communication technology. Our results demonstrate the feasibility to fabricate such graphene-enhanced heat spreaders by replacing part of the aluminum with graphene coatings. The new heat spreaders is 20% lighter while retaining similar thermal efficiency.

Expected long term effects

We have developed a new formulation technique to produce high-concentration graphene inks to allow easy fabrication of thick (up to 200 microns) and uniform graphene coatings on aluminum plates. After annealing, the graphene coatings obtain a thermal conductivity of around 500 W/m K. Even at 20% reduction of overall weight, the graphene-coated heat spreaders still exhibit similar thermal efficiency compared to the pure aluminum samples. The lighter heat spreaders have great potential to enhance the next-generation mobile electronics and communication technology.

Approach and implementation

KTH and Aninkco have formulated high-concentration (>100 mg/mL) graphene inks which allow easy fabrication of thick (up to 200 microns) and uniform graphene coatings on aluminum plates simply through drop costing. KTH has developed the annealing process for the thick graphene coatings on aluminum to obtain high thermal conductivity without introducing deformation, and conducted the thermal test. Huawei has performed modeling and simulations to estimate the thermal conductivity of the graphene coatings to be about 500 W/m K.