High Thermal Conductivity Enhancement of Polymer Composites with Vertically Aligned Silicon Carbide Sheet Scaffold.

Owing to the growth of demand for highly integrated electronic devices, high heat dissipation of thermal management materials is essential. Epoxy composite has been prepared with vertically aligned (VA) 3D-structured SiC sheet scaffold. The required VA-SiC sheet scaffolds were prepared by a novel approach starting with a graphene oxide (GO) scaffold. The VA-GO scaffolds was reduced to VA-graphene scaffolds in an argon environment, and the latter were subsequently transformed into VA-SiC sheet scaffold by a template-assisted chemical vapor deposition method. Epoxy resin was filled in the empty spaces of the 3D scaffold of SiC sheets to prepare the composite mass. The material so prepared shows anisotropic thermal property with ultrahigh through-plane conductivity of 14.32 W.m-1.K-1 at a SiC sheet content of 3.71 vol%. A thermal percolation is observed at 1.78 vol% of SiC filler. The SiC sheet scaffold of covalently interconnected SiC nanoparticles plays a vital role in the formation of the thermal conductive network to significantly enhance the thermal conductivity of epoxy composites. The application of VA-SiC/epoxy composite as an efficient thermal dissipating material has also been presented. The VA-SiC/epoxy composites have strong potential for preparing heat-dissipating components in integrated microelectronics.