Steady-State Thermoreflectance (SSTR-F) on Electronic Components

Published on March 26, 2021

Overview

Proper thermal management in electronics is crucial for reliability, speed, and efficiency. With thermal conductivity playing an important role in making electronics perform properly, we will explore ways to measure thermal conductivity using Steady-State Thermoreflectance fiber optics (SSTR-F). Silicone, non-silicone gap pads, gap filling materials and potting of resins are common techniques for thermal management in electronics and with the components in these electronics becoming smaller and more complex this requires more accurate tools for the measurement of thermal conductivity in them at the micro and nano scale.

Steady-state thermoreflectance-fiber (SSTR-R) is an optical measurement technique used to measure the thermal conductivity or boundary conductance of thin films and coatings ranging from a few nanometers up to tens of microns. Use of traditional steady state concepts in combination with a laser based pump-probe configuration allows for measurements of the thermal conductivity of materials from 0.05 W/m/K up to 2,500 W/m/K. We will discuss the measurement principles as well as a few emerging application spaces.

About the Speaker

Patrick Hopkins is CTO of Laser Thermal Analysis and a Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Virginia, with courtesy appointments in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Department of Physics, and a co-director of the ExSiTE Lab. Patrick received his Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from UVA in 2008, following a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and a B.A. in Physics at UVA in 2004. He spent 3 years as a Harry S. Truman Postdoctoral Fellow at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM from 2008 – 2011. His expertise includes various optical thermometry-based experiments to measure the optical properties, non-linear absorption, thermal conductivity, thermal boundary conductance, thermal accommodation, strain propagation and sound speed, and electron, phonon, and vibrational scattering mechanisms in a wide array of bulk materials and nanosystems.