Direct Answer: Reduced graphene oxide (rGO) supports thermal management by building a continuous, graphitic heat-transfer network in polymers and TIM bondlines; when the network percolates and sheets contact, heat spreads efficiently in-plane and can reduce interfacial thermal resistance versus an unfilled matrix.
In TIMs and heat-dissipating composites, Reduced Graphene Oxide (rGO) is evaluated as a 2D filler to create connected thermal pathways through sheet-to-sheet contact and to spread heat laterally where through-plane transport is limited by interfaces.
Peer application (not this page’s focus):
Reduced Graphene Oxide (rGO) is a 2D carbon nanosheet material with graphitic (sp²) domains that can transport heat along the sheet plane.
In polymer/TIM systems, its value proposition is mechanistic: (i) it supplies a high-aspect-ratio conduction scaffold, and (ii) it can connect into a percolating network at relatively low volume fractions compared with spherical fillers, provided contact density and interface quality are sufficient.
Primary transport pathway: Heat is carried through the carbon lattice, with much higher conductivity along the sheet plane than across stacked interfaces.
Network effect: Thermal improvement depends on creating sheet-to-sheet contact paths; the effective conductivity is often dominated by contact resistance and interfacial thermal resistance, not intrinsic lattice conduction alone.
Interface conditioning: Residual oxygen-containing groups can change polymer affinity and interfacial bonding; they also correlate with defects that can reduce maximum achievable conduction versus pristine graphene.
Energy coupling note: rGO can absorb broadly and strongly in NIR for photothermal conversion; for thermal-management composites, the relevant “activation” is typically geometric/percolative (network formation) rather than a switch-like photonic trigger.
Suggested for evaluation — application-specific testing required
Non-Applicability: If the design requires near-isotropic heat conduction (similar in-plane and through-plane) without enabling alignment or secondary pathways, rGO-only filling is often a poor match because interfaces and sheet anisotropy can dominate.
Failure sensitivities: Humidity uptake, re-oxidation in air at elevated temperature, and re-stacking during processing can reduce realized network connectivity and increase thermal resistance over time.
Unknown/Unverified: Long-duration stability of interfacial thermal resistance under cyclic humidity + thermal cycling is formulation-specific and is not verified universally for rGO-filled TIM systems.
Activation Boundary: Below the percolation threshold (system-dependent), rGO behaves as isolated platelets and the thermal gain is typically limited; a continuous contact network is required for meaningful pathway formation.
Mechanisms described here are based on established solid-state transport concepts (lattice conduction, interface resistance, percolation) and commonly reported behavior of reduced-graphene-oxide composites; quantitative outcomes remain matrix-, process-, and morphology-dependent.
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