“TIMAwave” an innovative test platform for thermal diffusivity measurements of solid materials at high temperature

Abstract

Thermal simulations are a powerful tool for the development and design of new electronics to predict their thermal behaviour during operation. To obtain accurate thermal simulations the knowledge of thermal properties of all the materials integrated in electronic devices is essential. Most materials show a decrease of thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity with increasing temperatures, which results in a continual worsening of heat dissipation in devices during operation. In this paper, we present the further development of our Ångström's method based measurement system TIMAwave™ to determine thermal diffusivities of solid materials at temperatures between 30 and 200 °C. To prove the functionality of our concept we demonstrate temperature-dependent thermal diffusivity measurements of silver, aluminium and steel, metallic samples with widely different thermal properties as well as measurements of pure and doped silicon, the most common material in electronics.