4 ms·

Why are they not more popular as a material for heatsinks? Especially with those that like decorating the inside of the PC with fairy lights.

• bitmasher9 2y ago
  It’s still prohibitively expensive for such applications.
• namibj 2y ago
  Oh they are. But heat pipes/vapor chambers have them beat. So they are only used where electrical insulation (pure diamond sheet) or mechanical strength (cheap diamond grains sorted into a densely packed single layer of diamonds embedded into a copper matrix; this fits nicely for silver sinter bonding dies to due to the low thermal expansion of diamond) is needed from the heatsink.
  • nsteel 2y ago
    Thanks. I since found https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-physical-science/fulltext/S2666-3864(23)00517-9 https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-physical-science/fulltext/..., perhaps it makes sense where you don't have a lot of space.
    • namibj 2y ago
      Oh, nice; I was thinking of what I believe is this, though: https://sumitomoelectric.com/products/cu-diamond https://sumitomoelectric.com/products/cu-diamond : size-selected diamonds to match the thickness profile of the power module/brick base plate, then encased in copper. Benefit is arguably more the expansion matching to GaN/SiC than the thermal conductivity improvements over plain copper.
• jaggederest 2y ago
  Riffing on this, the amazing thing about diamond is not merely that it's a better conductor of heat, but that it's about 2.5 times higher than copper. The only thing that beats it is single crystal boron arsenide which has some obvious downsides, being of course much more expensive and involving arsenic, which is considered a bad thing. And with that, diamond is destined to be even cheaper than silicon, I think. Much more available and easier to purify, the hard part is rendering it into a crystal which is relatively solved.
  • chii 2y ago
    I heard the expansion of diamond is quite different to many materials, which could lead to splitting or shearing when heated up next to another material attached: https://byjus.com/physics/coefficient-of-linear-expansion/ https://byjus.com/physics/coefficient-of-linear-expansion/ but perhaps it's not that big of an issue, not sure.
• trissylegs 2y ago
  No for PC heatsink, but in 3d printing heat is really important for the nozzel. And a company makes them with Polycrystaline Diamond, which is harder than normal diamond. The company needed it themselves as the carbon fibre filament they were using kept wearing out heads. They though "Why don't we make our own heads". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96eFnTescoY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96eFnTescoY
  • Animats 2y ago
    That makes sense. Dies for drawing fine wire have been made of diamond for most of a century. Seems like that's filtered down to 3D printers, which is a less demanding application.