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In recent years, sp3 has made major advances in diamond deposition technology, which has dramatically lowered the cost of CVD diamond. For this reason, cost need not be a deterrent to applying diamond, with its superlative heat dissipation capabilities.

DiaTherm diamond heat spreaders maximize emitter power and lifetime. Heat spreaders operate by rapidly removing heat generated by optoelectronic device emitters through thermal conduction to a heat sink. The heat spreader also spreads the heat from the smaller area of the chip to the larger heat sink. In optoelectronic applications, the effectiveness of the heat spreader is critical, because device performance is dependent upon the junction temperature on the chip. Lower and consistent junction temperature results in better performance, such as emitted light wavelength and conversion efficiency, as well as a longer lifetime.

Available as bare, free-standing diamond segments, or in metallized form, sp3's DiaTherm heat spreaders are laser cut from sheets of pure diamond formed by chemical vapor deposition in DC torch reactors. DiaTherm is 100 percent polycrystalline diamond with a density of 3.5 g/cm3. Typical electric resistivity is 1015 ohms/cm, and the material achieves a thermal conductivity of up to 1400 W/m°k. In addition to its heat conductivity, insulating properties and ability to be machined to tight tolerances, diamond is a passive heat spreader consuming no power.

Click here for sp3's white paper on DiaTherm - Low Cost CVD Diamond Heat-Spreaders

Click here for sp3's DiaTherm - Diamond Heat Spreaders Brochure

Click here for sp3's article on Challenges in Matching Die to Package CTE's for High Thermal Flux Devices