A technique to measure the thermal resistance at the interface between a micron size particle and its matrix in composite materials

Particle-matrix interfaces can play an important role in heat propagation through particulate composites. We investigated the possibility of using frequency domain thermoreflectance combined with a numerical thermal model to measure in situ the thermal resistance of the particle-matrix interface in particulate composite materials. We found that the sensitivity of the technique depended on the matrix thermal conductivity, the particle size, and the value of the interface thermal resistance. In general, high thermal conductivity matrix materials and small particles will present higher sensitivity to the interface thermal resistance. We tested the technique with diamond particles embedded in tin and showed that the interface thermal resistance could be measured for these samples.