High-performance electrodeposited wick design: from mechanism to fabrication, and applications in ultra-thin flat-plate heat pipes

With the rapid advancement of 5G communication, artificial intelligence, and high-performance computing technologies, microelectronic devices are evolving towards higher integration, miniaturization, and power density, making thermal management a critical bottleneck for performance enhancement. Ultra-thin flat plate heat pipes (UTFP-HPs), owing to their high-efficiency heat dissipation characteristics and ultra-thin structure, emerge as promising candidates for such applications. Based on the electrodeposition technology, this study innovatively designs wick structures under various electrodeposition parameters and applies them to UTFP-HPs, through experimental research on its performance and mechanism. The results demonstrate that the wicks with different parameters display favorable capillary performance. Specifically, CC-18-160 can climb to the top of 90 mm within 84 s, IC-24-160 can reach the top in 56 s, and interestingly, IC-22-180 after undergoing oxidation corrosion merely requires 46 s to ascend to the top. Then the wicks are used to fabricate UTFP-HPs with a thickness of 0.5 mm. After conducting experimental tests under a variety of heat dissipation conditions, it was discovered that the maximum heat transfer capacity is 9 W, the minimum thermal resistance is 0.544 °C/W, and the equivalent thermal conductivity is 9196 W/m·K, which provides new insights for dynamic thermal optimization in electronic devices.