Odd-even effect on the thermal conductivity of liquid crystalline epoxy resins.

Rapid developments in high-performance computing and high-power electronics are driving needs for highly thermal conductive polymers and their composites for encapsulants and interface materials. However, polymers typically have low thermal conductivities of ∼0.2 W/(m K). We studied the thermal conductivity of a series of epoxy resins cured by one diamine hardener and seven diepoxide monomers with different precise ethylene linker lengths ( = 2-8). We found pronounced odd-even effects of the ethylene linker length on the liquid crystalline order, mass density, and thermal conductivity. Epoxy resins with even have liquid crystalline structure with the highest density of 1.44 g/cm and highest thermal conductivity of 1.0 W/(m K). Epoxy resins with odd are amorphous with the lowest density of 1.10 g/cm and lowest thermal conductivity of 0.17 W/(m K). These findings indicate that controlling precise linker length in dense networks is a powerful route to molecular design of thermally conductive polymers.