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1997
Conference Paper
Titel
Thermal conductivity of diamond and diamond thin films
Abstract
The very high thermal conductivity of diamond was first noted in measurements performed by Eucken on natural crystals in 1911. In the sixties and seventies the use of diamond as a heat spreader for the removal of thermal energy produced by semiconductor microwave devices stimulated experimental and theoretical investigations of the thermal conductivity of natural or synthetic diamond single crystals. Roughly one decade after the first measurements of thermal conductivity performed on diamond films synthesized by microwave plasma CVD the thermal conductivity of high-quality diamond films has approached that of single crystals, and the use of CVD diamond as a heat spreader for electronic and opto-electronic devices is becoming - besides tool coatings - the most important application of this material. The intent of the present article is not to give a review of the literature on the thermal conductivity of diamond single crystals and thin films. Instead it attempts to give (in chapter 2) an introduction into important models presently used to discuss the influences of various factors on the thermal conductivity of dielectric solids. The following two chapters presents - on the basis of important selected papers - the results of experimental and theoretical investigations on diamond single crystals and thin films.