A comprehensive review of diamond/copper composites for high thermal conductivity applications

Diamond/copper composites have attracted wide attention owing to their exceptional thermal conductivity and favorable mechanical properties, making them promising materials for high-performance thermal management and electronic packaging. This review summarizes key fabrication strategies, including vacuum hot pressing, spark plasma sintering, high-temperature high-pressure techniques, and infiltration methods, with a comparative discussion of their advantages and limitations. Emphasis is placed on interfacial bonding mechanisms and regulation approaches, such as matrix alloying and diamond surface metallization, along with the influence of processing parameters on interfacial integrity. The roles of intrinsic material characteristics, processing conditions, and interfacial modifications in governing thermal and mechanical performance are systematically examined. Moreover, recent advances in numerical simulations for optimizing design and predicting properties are highlighted. Finally, the application potential of diamond/Cu composites in advanced thermal management is outlined, and future research directions are proposed.