Investigation of hybrid graphene-hBN and graphene-GO as a direct contact heat spreader

Abstract

This article studies the suitability of hybrid graphene-hexagonal boron nitride (G-hBN) and graphene-graphene oxide (G-GO) as direct contact heat spreaders on a Pt/Cu/Ti micro-coil. The Ar/CH4 plasma treatment converts hBN and GO into G-hBN and G-GO heat spreaders, respectively based on the appearance of graphene Raman I(G) peak at 1575 cm-1. Both G-hBN and G-GO are superior heat spreaders compared to the initial hBN and GO with more than 0.5-times of hotspot temperature reduction, 10-times more coil cooling effects, and more than 0.5-times reduction in lateral thermal resistance. However, the plasma treatment is damaging to the hotspot device and causes a severe increase in the coil resistance of at least 1.2-times due to thinning of metal. Therefore, the preferential heat spreader is still the non-hybridized hBN since it negligibly affects the resistance of the Pt/Cu/Ti coil. It offers a 16% reduction in hotspot temperature and reduces the lateral thermal resistance by 37.4%. It is the third-best after the G-GO and G-hBN heat spreaders.