High-Performance Thermal Grease with the Addition of Silver Particles

Thermal grease has been widely used in the thermal management of electronic packaging due to its excellent filling ability between heat resource and heat sink, yet those grease tend to have low thermal conductivity. Increasing the filler content in thermal grease will enhance the thermal transfer capacity but impair its filling performance. Here, we report a thermal grease with optimal thermal conductivity and filling capacity prepared from alkyl silicone oil, hydrogen silicone oil, alumina ${(\mathrm{A}1_{2}\mathrm{O}_{3})}$ , zinc oxide (ZnO) and silver (Ag). The silver particles effectively connect the fillers in the grease, improving the overall thermal conductivity while ensure proper viscosity. This adjustable interaction between thermal conductivity and viscosity makes it possible to adjust the thermal transfer capacity of the grease without causing a decrease in the filling performance. The prepared thermal grease exhibits a combination of satisfactory thermal conductivity ${(3.0\ \text{Wm}^{-1}\mathrm{K}^{-1})}$ and lower viscosity (~322.7 Pa.s), those excellent properties indicate their great potential in the application of electronic packaging.