US Patent 7985627 - CNT thermal interface

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7985627.html

This patent is the latest in a series of patents from Intel teaching ways to use carbon nanotubes to achieve high thermal conduction interfaces to cool integrated circuit packaging. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method, comprising:

oxidizing at least one nanotube rope in acid to cut it into short nanotubes with open ends having carboxyl linkages attached thereto;

forming organic moieties at the open ends; tethering an end of the short nanotubes to a surface of a first object; and

placing a surface of a second object in contact with another end of the short nanotubes to form a thermal path between the surface of the first object and the surface of the second object.