Structural Evolution of Reaction Bonded Interfacial Zone of Diamond/SiC

Heat dissipation and management has become a bottleneck in the search of materials for applications in extreme environment such as high-energy laser (HEL) mirror, precision fabrication platform, energy device, and advanced chips. Incorporating diamond and SiC in composite can achieve desired thermal and mechanical properties. The outstanding thermal conductivities and thermal expansion coefficients of diamond Reaction bonding (RB) of diamond and SiC is highly favored in industry because of its cost-effectiveness and efficiency for a near-net-shape processing in a relatively mild fabrication environment. The interfacial microstructure of the RB diamong/SiC is essential to determining the composite properties. For instance, the interphase structure, defect distribution, and grain size can all significantly affect the phonon transport and thus the thermal conductivity. This study is therefore to understand the interfacial zone and its evolution for the correlation with the thermal properties of RB diamond/SiC composites.