Effect of amounts and types of silicon nitride on thermal conductivity of Si3N4/epoxy resin composite

• Published in: Journal of the Ceramic Society of Japan 2015/09/01, Vol.123(1441), pp.908-912
• Main Authors: SHIMAMURA, Akihiro, HOTTA, Yuji, HYUGA, Hideki, KONDO, Naoki, HIRAO, Kiyoshi
• Format: Article
• Language: eng ; jpn
• Subjects: Ceramics; Composite; Epoxy resin; Epoxy resins; Heat transfer; Particulate composites; Polymer matrix composites; Polymers; Silicon nitride; Thermal conductivity
• ISSN: 1882-0743; 1348-6535
• DOI: 10.2109/jcersj2.123.908

Thermal conductive ceramic/resin composites are necessary for thermal management in order to improve the reliability of high-performance products in various industrial fields. The present study created composites consisting of silicon nitride (Si3N4) particles and epoxy resin by imbedding the particles into the resin matrix. Two common types of Si3N4 were applied in this work. α phase (α-Si3N4) and β phase (β-Si3N4) silicon nitride were loaded with epoxy resin. The effect of Si3N4 type on the thermal conductivity of composites was investigated by varying the Si3N4 particle content. For composites below 50 vol.% Si3N4, there was almost no difference in thermal conductivity between equivalently loaded α-Si3N4 or β-Si3N4/epoxy composites. However, for Si3N4 contents exceeding 50 vol.%, the β-Si3N4/epoxy composites showed higher thermal conductivities relative to the α-Si3N4/epoxy composite. The relative difference in thermal conductivities between the β-Si3N4 and α-Si3N4 epoxy composites (β-Si3N4/α-Si3N4) increased to 1.6 times at 68 vol.% of Si3N4 content.