Pressure infiltration of boron nitride preforms with molten aluminum for low density heat sink materials

Cubic boron nitride (cBN) has outstanding mechanical and thermal properties. The previous research focused on mechanical properties, to data, the thermal property of cBN has rarely been reported. In this work, a wide range of aluminum/cubic boron nitride (Al/cBN) composites were fabricated by pressure infiltration at 5.0 GPa and 960–1600 °C. The microstructure, phase composition, thermal conductivity and coefficient of thermal expansion of the Al/cBN composites were investigated. The results showed that a maximum thermal conductivity of 266 W/mK and the coefficient of thermal expansion of 4–6 × 10^?6 K^?1 which matches well to semiconductors, indicating that the Al/cBN composites are promised heat sink materials of high efficiency for the wide band gap semiconductors.