Copper Foam Wicks for Vapor Chambers

The vapor chamber’s thermal performance is driven by the wicking structure, which is most commonly made of sintered copper powder or copper wire mesh in the electronic industry.

Metafoam’s open-cell copper foams are used as wicking structures in vapor chambers to cool electronic systems more efficiently. The copper foam wick is used as replacement for copper wire mesh or sintered powder wicks which are the critical components in high performance heat sink cooling solutions. The technology developed by Metafoam significantly increases the maximum heat load capacity of vapor chambers while reducing the response time and thermal resistance at high heat loads. Hence, metal foam wick-based vapor chambers can be used in high power electronics across a large number of industries and applications.

The diagram below shows how Metafoam’s wick structure act as a substitute to traditional sintered copper powder wick structures. Metafoam’s production process allows for highly flexible copper foam wick structures, in terms of design, thickness, and form factors. This flexibility means that vapor chamber manufacturers do not have to change their design to integrate Metafoam’s wick structure. Furthermore, Metafoam’s wick significantly simplifies the vapor chamber assembly process while guaranteeing wick homogeneity, thickness and uniformity.