Unleashing the Potential of Boron Nitride Spheres for High-Performance Thermal Management

Highly integrated and miniaturized electronic devices require advanced thermal management techniques to improve reliability and performance. Thanks to their high thermal conductivity and electrical insulation, boron nitride nanosheets (BNNSs) are commomly used as fillers to construct thermally conductive polymer composites for heat dissipation. However, the BNNS reinforced composites exhibit anisotropic thermal conductivity due to the anisotropic structure of BNNSs. Micro-sized boron nitride spheres (BNSs) with isotropic thermal conductivity are considered one of the best solutions. Nevertheless, precisely measuring the thermal conductivity of BNSs remains a challenge, limiting the understanding of the thermal transport mechanism. Herein, we have successfully estimated the thermal conductivity of BNSs using the laser flash method. Factors influencing BNSs’ thermal conductivity, including precursor, polymer binder and sintering temperature, are also investigated. Under optimized conditions, BNSs exhibit high, isotropic thermal conductivity of 37.2±2.5 W/(m ⋅ K), and the BNS pellet outperforms its h-BN counterpart in heat dissipation for an LED light. This superiority is attributed to outstanding heat transfer performance in the cross-plane direction, in addition to high in-plane thermal conductivity. This study provides a feasible method to estimate the thermal conductivity of spherical materials and highlights promising boron nitride materials with isotropic thermal conductivity for heat dissipation in advanced electronics. © 2024 The Authors. ChemNanoMat published by Wiley-VCH GmbH.