Recent progress of Carbon Nanotubes as cooling fins in electronic packaging

As power density in electronic system is approaching a level that conventional cooling methods canpsilat handle, reliability of microsystems is of large concern. In this paper, novel schemes for heat dissipation on electrical components have been reviewed with a strong focus on using carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as cooling fins as a basic approach. With an extraordinary high thermal conductivity, CNT is considered as an ideal material for thermal management in high heat flux microsystems. Fabricated onto a silicon substrate to form microchannels, the CNT based cooling fins show high heat dissipation efficiency. This paper reviews the ongoing research on CNT based microchannel cooler development carried out so far. Both experimental and simulation results are included and presented.