Mechanical gap fillers: Concepts and thermal resistance measurements

This paper discusses spring-loaded mechanical structures that can be used to make thermal connections between an object to be cooled, such as an integrated circuit, and a dissipative structure, like a cooling plate or heat sink. These metal structures are flexible and resilient, adapting to variations in position and orientation of the two objects to be coupled. Precision experiments demonstrate that they have much lower thermal resistance than elastomeric "gap-filler" pads that are usually used to perform this function.