The trend of miniaturization in electronics has led to much greater heat densities within computer chips, demanding high performance heat sinks at smaller and smaller scales. A vertically aligned array of carbon nanotubes could function analogously to a conventional fin or pillar heat sink. Using a nano-porous aluminum oxide template, aligned carbon nanotubes were grown by chemical vapor deposition, and processing parameters were varied for comparison. By applying a constant heat input, the steady state temperature was measured for different surface morphologies, enabling insight into nano-scale convection properties
