Gold leaf paper as thermal compound

[Cathar]

I was thinking today while walking through a craft shop with my wife, that they have gold leaf paper on sale.

My mind then went to arctic silver, and how metal on CPU contact is much preferable over thermal paste.

So, I looked up the thermal conductivity of gold, and it's better than aluminium, but worse than copper, about half-way between the two, meaning it's actually a pretty good conductor of heat.

So has anyone considered lapping their heatsinks totally flat (meaning mirror finish flat), and instead of using thermal paste, use gold leaf instead as a thermal interface material.

Gold is extremely malleable and would easily deform into the required micro-gaps to provide a near perfect metal - CPU contact.

Gold leaf paper is cheapish (costs less than a tube of Arctic Silver) and 1 sheet would cover plenty of CPUs.

Thoughts? Could we see a sudden stream of computer oveclocking nuts swarming to their local arts and craft stores?

[quadcity]

How much gold is in this gold leaf paper? I doubt that even pure gold would be maleable enough to mate with the microscopic pits that would most likely still be there even after the best lapping job.

But, you never know. Anyone got an old tbird they want to try this out on?

[HWF]

I have thought about the gold leaf and gold paints and spoke to the manufactures and had them fax MSDS sheets and no gold content was listed in these products.

[rachaelsdad]

Gold leaf is supposed to be pure gold and it is much finer than Al foil it should easily fill any pits. However since Silver is the best conductor how about silver leaf instead?

[tenax]

how about very conductive and if a piece touches your chips resistors it shorts and cooks your processor!?

remember, as not only has silver in it..but is somehow designed to be non conductive at the same time when it comes to electricity..the silver and gold will conduct anything!

[rachaelsdad]

Dagnabit Tenax we just had the beginnings of great philosophical discussion going and you have to butt in and make sense!

[Cathar]

Who cares about eletrical conductivity?

Heck, we stick copper and aluminium heatsinks on our cores, and it's not like they kill anything, 'cos they don't touch anything eletrical.

I'm only talking about covering the core with gold leaf paper (oh, yes there is imitation and real gold leaf - so you need to be careful and make sure you're getting the real deal).

It's not like I'm draping the leaf over the entire CPU + ceramic or anything. You put it in onto the core, and push it on with a fine paintbrush, and the cut it around the edges of the core with a razor blade (or whatever).

Basically you end up with a gold coated core.

I check a few craft shops here and they only had imitation gold leaf (dutch gold they called it). They did point me at some stores that do carry the real stuff so I'll check with them later.

[rachaelsdad]

Will try to find some silver leaf tomorrow and use it and we can compare. Stuff is static prone and flys away with air current. Used it in college once and and had to use some kind of brush to get it on.

[tenax]

let;s just say..i look forward to hearing of your (mis) adventures!
have a fire extinguisher handy..hope it doesn't burn up!

[stsurbrook]

bump...

What's the word? Or is the silence on this revealing?

Scott

[Cathar]

Oops.

No word yet. I've been house-bound the last few days with a bad virus/flu, so haven't been able to get out and find any leaf paper yet. Hmmm, I will wander through the city centre today and see what I can find.

[Cathar]

Okay, I went and priced this stuff.

80AUD (40USD) for 20 sheets about 4"x3" of 23K pure gold leaf. I couldn't find it in smaller sheet quantities (I only want a single sheet).

I'm not blowing that kind of dough on a theory. Unless I can find someone willing to sell me a single sheet, it'll just remain an idea.