Heat transfer enhancement with insertion of an interphase layer in a copper-diamond system

Effective thermal conductivities of copper (Cu)/diamond (D) composite materials have been investigated with and without the presence of a ZrC interphase at the Cu-D interfaces. As expected, this interphase allows reaching a thermal conductivity (TC) higher than that of the Cu alone whereas the composite materials without ZrC interphase present lower TCs than that of Cu independent of the volume fraction of D particles. A realistic model accounted with the random distribution of the diamond particles within the Cu matrix was developed to reveal the thermal resistance of the ZrC interphase. It is also shown that increasing the diameter of the diamond particles leads to the increase in the effective TC of the composite material as well. The use of the diffuse mismatch model for phonon at the interfaces located at both sides of the interphase reveals the value of the thermal resistance of the interphase from the realistic model.