Effect of diamond shapes and associated thermal boundary resistance on thermal conductivity of diamond-based composites

This work presents techniques to generate densely packed diamond-like particles, for example, as present in a metal matrix composite of Al, Cu, or Ag reinforced with single crystals of synthetic diamonds; as intended to be used for heat sinks or very efficient thermal conductors, spreaders, etc. Two different ways are described to predict the thermal conductivity of the composite: line tracing and surface-averaged Hasselman and Johnson. The effects of diamond volume fraction, size and, in particular, shapes on the composite thermal conductivity are discussed.