Sc2W3O12/Cu composites with low thermal expansion coefficient and high thermal conductivity for efficient cooling of electronics

Owing to that, efficient cooling the chip demands a heat sink material possess high thermal conductivity and low CTE equivalent to the gallium arsenide (GaAs) or silicon (Si). Addressing this target, we have synthesized Sc2W3O12/Cu composites by hot-pressing sintering at 700 °C, which was based on the uniform submicron Sc2W3O12 powder prepared for the first time. The resulting product not only possessed a low CTE (8.31 ppm/K, which was identical to GaAs of 6.2 ppm/K) and high thermal conductivity (243.99 W/m K), but also exhibited extremely stable CTE within a temperature range of 25 °C–300 °C and high Vickers hardness (234.32 HV) due to its uniform and nearly full dense microstructure. A ‘thermoelastic-micro-mechanics'model was used to predict the CTE quantitatively and the estimated values were in good agreement with the experimental CTE values. Moreover, the excellent compatibility of thermal properties between Sc2W3O12 and Cu possesses an isolated spot in Ashby map based on CTE and thermal conductivity, and the as-synthesized composite exhibits nearly greatest thermal stability indicated via its low thermal distortion parameter (TDP).