Together with TU Wien, industrial partner ZKW Elektronik GmbH and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, JOANNEUM RESEARCH is developing a novel process for printing heat conductors made of graphene for electronics and photonics.
Highly integrated LEDs generate significant heat loss during operation, which must be dissipated efficiently. Graphene is a particularly good heat-conducting, cost-effective and low-pollutant material, but it is currently still difficult to apply graphene heat conductors to LED assemblies on an industrial scale.
The researchers printed layers of graphene onto LED components in a similar way to a conventional inkjet printer, using aerosol jet printing, which also allowed cheaper, thicker graphene inks to be used and enabled controlled printing even on uneven, rough surfaces. The joint project allowed the partners to test how well graphene can function as a heat conductor in modern, intelligent headlight solutions. The initial results were very promising.
