A metal micro-textured thermal interface material (MMT-TIM) has been developed to address the shortcomings of conventional TIMs. In the present study, the MMT-TEVIs consist of silver foils with raised, small-scale, hollow features. Upon compression between two solids, these features plastically deform, conforming to the asperities of the contacting surfaces thereby achieving intimate contact in the contact regions and a high conductivity bondline.

An experimental apparatus for characterizing TIMs having unprecedented precision and accuracy was developed to quantify the thermal and mechanical response of MMTTEMs. A robust and conservative uncertainty analysis provides quantitative assessments of all results. Additionally, the simultaneous measurements of thermal and electrical resistance allowed for the indirect estimation of thermal contact resistance of the MMTTIMs investigated in the present study.

A combined thermal-mechanical model was developed to simultaneously predict the mechanical and thermal response of MMT-TIMs as they undergo large plastic compressive deformations for the purposes of serving as a design tool to optimize MMTTIM geometry.

The mechanical response of this model was improved by reconstructing actual MMT-TEMs geometries using SEM images of MMT-TIM features and 3D surface reconstruction software. Model results based on this approach demonstrated significant improvement over conventional geometry representation techniques

The thermal response of the model was improved by developing two different approaches to characterizing the MMT-TIM thermal contact resistance. The first approach relied on mechanical model predictions for local contact pressures and an empirical correlation for thermal contact conductance developed using silver tubes. This approach yielded a more realistic prediction of MMT-TIM total thermal response, however tended to over predict the contact resistance of the MMT-TIMs.

In the second approach, an additional electrical resistance measurement was used to develop a direct correlation between electrical and thermal contact resistance for MMTTIMs. Subsequent experimental results demonstrated this approach well predicted the contact resistance of the silver MMT-TIMs studied here.

Based on this work, recommendations for further work on this technology are presented and discussed.