The Role of Particle Microstructure and Polymer Configuration in 3D Printed Thermal Composites

While everyday device sizes continue to shrink, the power being packed into them increases drastically, driving internal heat generation to the point of overwhelming current thermal management solutions and limiting system-level performance. New thermal management materials and solutions are required to support higher energy density electronics; incumbent materials including metals like copper and aluminum satisfy many applications, however they are heavy and cannot be placed adjacent to electronics or in the proximity of radio frequency components. Additive manufacturing and fine-tuned composite creation can enable lightweight and geometrically complex thermal management solutions that provide a distinct advantage over current solutions. Here we present a collection of new understandings around process-structure-property relationships that will help enable higher performing thermal parts via additive manufacturing. This work focuses on the interplay between the filament composition, the processing conditions of fused filament fabrication (FFF), and the post-processing of printed parts (annealing). The goal of this research is to enable emergent properties in FFF printed composites through material interface and interphase engineering, flow-induced self-assembly of mesostructure, and temperature-induced self-assembly of polymeric nanostructure. The ability to locally control the thermal conductivity of FFF parts would enable a new class of advanced thermal management materials.