Thermal conductivity and microhardness of MWCNTs/copper nanocomposites

The effects of dispersion states of carbon nanotubes on thermal conductivity and Micro-hardness of Multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) reinforced copper nanocomposites were investigated. The nanocomposites were fabricated in a novel method. It involves the synthesis of MWCNT-implanted copper composite spheres and the preparation of the MWCNT/copper bulk materials using vacuum hot pressing and hot rolling. The thermal conductivity of the composites with different concentration of MWCNTs were measured. Although the coefficient of thermal conductivity decreases with the increase of the MWCNT content, it is still high enough to be used as electronic packaging materials even the concentration of MWCNTS in the composite is up to 5 wt%. Furthermore, the microhardness of the nanocomposites are much higher than that of pure copper, which is ascribed to the good dispersion of the MWCNTs in matrix.