A Simulation of Thermal Management Using a Diamond Substrate with Nanostructures

Micromachines (Basel). 2023 Aug 5;14(8):1559. doi: 10.3390/mi14081559.

Abstract

In recent years, the rapid progress in the field of GaN-based power devices has led to a smaller chip size and increased power usage. However, this has given rise to increasing heat aggregation, which affects the reliability and stability of these devices. To address this issue, diamond substrates with nanostructures were designed and investigated in this paper. The simulation results confirmed the enhanced performance of the device with diamond nanostructures, and the fabrication of a diamond substrate with nanostructures is demonstrated herein. The diamond substrate with square nanopillars 2000 nm in height exhibited optimal heat dissipation performance. Nanostructures can effectively decrease heat accumulation, resulting in a reduction in temperature from 121 °C to 114 °C. Overall, the simulation and experimental results in this work may provide guidelines and help in the development of the advanced thermal management of GaN devices using diamond micro/nanostructured substrates.

Keywords: comsol; diamond; nanostructures; simulation; thermal management.

Grants and funding

This work is supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2021YFB3601600), the National Nature Science Foundation of China (61974062, 62074077, 62004104, 61921005, 61974031), the Leading-edge Technology Program of Jiangsu Natural Science Foundation (BE2021008-2), The Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20180747), The Fundamental Research Foundation for the Central Universities, and the Collaborative Innovation Center of Solid-State Lighting and Energy-Saving Electronics.