Infrared microscopy thermal characterization of opposing carbon nanotube arrays

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have received much recent research interest for thermal management applications due to their extremely high thermal conductivity. An advanced thermal interface structure made of two opposing, partially overlapped CNT arrays is designed for thermally connecting two contact surfaces. The performance of this interface structure is thermally characterized using diffraction-limited infrared microscopy. Significant temperature discontinuities are found at the CNT-CNT contact region, which indicates a large thermal resistance between CNTs. Due to this intertube resistance, the thermal performance of the CNT-based interface structure is far below expectation (with a thermal resistance value about 3.8 X 10(-4) K m(2)/W).