The Development of Hybrid Aluminium-Diamond-Hexagonal Boron Nitride Metal Matrix Composites for Heat Sink Applications

Modern material researchers are focused on developing new metal matrix composite (MMCs) which have superior strength-to-weight ratio, thermal and electrical properties. Compared to monolithic metals, metal matrix composites have better mechanical, thermal and electrical properties. There is enormous demand for materials which have high thermal conductivity, smaller size and low coefficient of thermal expansion that can be used as a heat sink in electronic devices, primarily for computer processors, semiconductor lasers, and high-power microchips. In this research work an effort has been made to prepare hybrid aluminium metal matrix composite and to study its thermal properties and microstructure. Preparation of hybrid aluminium metal matrix composite by a powder metallurgy process was made by reinforcing synthetic diamond and hexagonal boron nitride (HBN). Aluminium powder was used because of its low density and reasonably high thermal conductivity, diamond for its very high thermal conductivity and HBN was used because of its better thermal conductivity and wettability properties. The objective of this work is to analyse the suitability of the composite material for heat sink applications.