Preparation of high thermal conductivity shaped diamond/copper composites by isostatic pressing

Diamond/copper composites exhibit excellent thermophysical properties and demonstrate wide potential for heat dissipation applications. However, due to high hardness, it's difficult to process complex shape parts. To overcome the challenge, this study proposes the isostatic pressure technique. A pressureless sintering combined with cold and hot isostatic pressing is employed to prepare shaped diamond/copper composites with thermal conductivity reaching 620 W/mK, which is 57 % higher than that of pure copper. Cold isostatic pressing is used to enhance the density of the skeleton, followed by pressureless sintering to change the pore structure from open hole to closed hole. Finally, hot isostatic pressing is employed to eliminate the closed holes, thus improving the comprehensive performance of the composite.