Effect of a new pretreatment on the microstructure and thermal conductivity of Cu/diamond composites

A new pretreatment method of diamond particle surface was introduced to fabricate the Cu/diamond composites, in which the diamond particles were mixed with copper powder and different carbide former (including B, W) powder at high temperature. Cu/diamond composites were fabricated by spark plasma sintering (SPS) after the surface pretreatment of the diamond powders. The influence of the pretreatment temperature and the carbide forming elements on the microstructure and thermal conductivity of Cu/diamond composites were investigated. These results suggest that the pretreatment process is very effective for producing strong bonding between the diamond particles and Cu matrix. A Cu/diamond composites with high thermal conductivity of 660 W (m K)−1 was obtained, which was achieved by the formation of large number of nanostructures on the diamond particle surface.