A mini review on thermally conductive polymers and polymer-based composites

The continuous trend of miniaturization leads to unprecedented power densities within electronic devices, which also becomes the bottleneck of the device performance. Effective cooling of electronic devices is critical and polymer-based materials may play an important role in this important direction, with advantages such as low cost, corrosion resistance, light weight, and flexibility. For thermal management applications, the intrinsically low thermal conductivities of amorphous polymers can be dramatically enhanced with strain-induced crystallization and ultra-high-conductivity fillers. In this mini review, some advancements in this field are summarized and discussed, followed by a prospective on future directions.