Bubble-templated Construction of Three-dimensional Ceramic Network for Enhanced Thermal Conductivity of Silicone Rubber Composites

With the continuous development of the electronics industry, the energy density of modern electronic devices increases constantly, thus releasing a lot of heat during operation. Modern electronic devices take higher and higher request to the thermal interface materials. Achieving high thermal conductivity needs to establish an interconnecting thermal conductivity network in the matrix. For this purpose, the suspension of Al₂O₃ and curdlan was first foamed to construct a bubble-templated continuous ceramic framework. Owing to the rapid gelation property of curdlan, we can easily remove moisture by hot air drying. Finally, the high thermally conductive composites are prepared by vacuum impregnation of silicone rubber. The result showed that composites prepared by our method have higher thermal conductivity than the samples obtained by traditional method. The thermal conductivity of the prepared composite material reached 1.253 W·m⁻¹·K⁻¹ when the alumina content was 69.6 wt%. This facile method is expected to be applied to the preparation of high-performance thermal interface materials.