Carbon Nanotubes and Graphene for Thermal Management

Efficient advanced thermal management materials (TMMs) are the need of the hour for the development of the next-generation electronic and optoelectronic devices. The critical issues faced by thermal management (TM) are reliability, flexibility and the life span of electronic devices. The TMMs not only exhibit a high value of thermal conductivity, dissipation power density but also show flexibility in structure, and are lightweight with mechanical robustness. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene play a significant role in TM at the nanoscale. The outstanding thermal properties of CNTs and graphene have been analyzed in depth for TM at the nanoscale. CNTs and graphene are used in the TMMs due to their excellent mechanical flexibility and thermal conductivity. The value of thermal conductivity at the room temperature of carbon nanofillers is 5 times higher as compared to amorphous carbon. The thermal transport properties of CNTs and graphene depend on the dimension, shape, domain size and coupling strength of the materials. The mean free path length and phonon-phonon scattering affect the thermal properties are considered vital for TMMs. In this chapter, we discuss the recent progress of CNTs and graphene in TM applications. Finally, an outlook is given for future work of carbon nanofillers for TM. Efficient advanced thermal management materials (TMMs) are the need of the hour for the development of the next-generation electronic and optoelectronic devices. The critical issues faced by thermal management (TM) are reliability, flexibility and the life span of electronic devices. This chapter discusses the mechanisms, theoretical calculations, and applications of CNTs and graphene in TMMs. Generally, polymers have a low value of thermal conductivity (TC); the mean free path of phonon is extremely small due to scattering with other phonons. In the polymer material, the phonon scattering phenomenon is different as compared to crystalline material. Due to the outstanding values of TC, carbon nanofillers behave as excellent materials which improve the TC of the polymer composites. Thermal analysis is considered to be vital in engineering structures, numerous research groups have explored the TC of nanocomposites. The TC of polymer composites depends on good thermal interface adhesives, which improve the interactions between the mating surfaces.