Scientists from Fraunhofer were able to speed up the cooling of electronic components and increase the charging speed of electric vehicles by using the thermal conductivity properties of diamond. To do this, they used ultra-thin diamond membranes.
Proper heat dissipation becomes one of the most important tasks in electronics design. Heat sinks are often made of copper or aluminum. But these metals become good conductors of electricity, which is why manufacturers have to use another insulating layer. To solve the problem, Fraunhofer employees used the properties of diamond.
“Diamond nanomembranes are extremely efficient at transferring heat to copper, since this stone can be converted into conductive tracks,” says Matthias Mühle, one of the authors of the experiment.
These membranes are flexible so they can be placed anywhere on an electronics component and can even be used inside a cooling loop. Diamond heat spreaders are already used in electronics manufacturing, but their thickness typically exceeds 2 mm. Flexible one-micrometer-thick nanomembranes, on the other hand, can be easily attached to electronic components by heating up to 80 degrees.
To make them, the team grew polycrystalline diamond on silicon wafers. It was then separated into layers. It turned out that diamond nanomembranes can reduce the thermal load on electronic components by 10 times, thanks to which manufacturers will be able to increase energy efficiency and service life of both individual components and all electronics as a whole. And if you include them in charging station systems, the membranes will help increase the charging speed of electric cars fivefold.
Diamond nanomembranes can already be used on silicon wafers. This process is easy to apply on an industrial scale. The team has already filed a patent for this technology and plans to begin testing it by the end of 2024.