Monday, April 6th 2009
New Heatsink Material - Copper-diamond Alloy
Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute have developed a new material which allows better cooling than the conventional copper and aluminum solutions. To achieve this result, diamond powder has been added to metallic copper. Diamond conducts heat five times better than copper.
The result is a bond with 1.5 times the heat conduction of copper. Another advantage is that the material does not expand too much when heated, otherwise it couldn't be used in electronic devices.
It's not easy to create a stable bond between copper and diamond. The researchers use small amounts of chrome, which will form carbide-layers on the diamond, allowing copper to create bonds. It's possible that there are other materials with similar features.
As of yet, the material is only being demonstrated, whereas in the future it may find its way into notebooks, where heat dissipation has always been a problem.
Source:
Hardware.Info
The result is a bond with 1.5 times the heat conduction of copper. Another advantage is that the material does not expand too much when heated, otherwise it couldn't be used in electronic devices.
It's not easy to create a stable bond between copper and diamond. The researchers use small amounts of chrome, which will form carbide-layers on the diamond, allowing copper to create bonds. It's possible that there are other materials with similar features.
As of yet, the material is only being demonstrated, whereas in the future it may find its way into notebooks, where heat dissipation has always been a problem.
36 Comments on New Heatsink Material - Copper-diamond Alloy
I'd like to see a copper heatsink with a silver base :D
Now De Beers will be making Heatsinks!!!
It's "Fraunhofer Institute", or "Fraunhofer IFAM".
"Fraunhofer Forscher" just means Fraunhofer researchers. ;)
Officially it's "Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Applied Materials Research".
BTW, here is a link:
www.ifam-dd.fraunhofer.de/fhg/ifam_dd/EN/press/kupfer.jsp
What seems strange is the press release date. :confused:
:roll:
diamond wins .... fatality .. or is it fatal1ty?
Man : "Will you marry me?"
Woman : " Yes I do !"
Man : *attach heatsinks at the woman's finger*
I hope they create a factory where pc enthusiests are able to recycle x-wives diamond rings . . . because that will surely help with reducing costs.
Synthetic diamond dust however shouldn't raise current Block prices too high imho.
The idea seems nice, but it does not cohere with theory.
It is known in Engineering Heat Transfer that an alloy's thermal conductivity decreases when compared to the individual thermal conductivity of each material used in the mix.
Sounds interesting though. Hopefully not too expensive.