The aim of this work is to obtain, without sintering, AlN compacts wit
h a high thermal conductivity h. We report in this paper the main expe
rimental results obtained. We show that a high value of lambda could n
ot be reached by using only AlN powder. It is necessary to realize AlN
/metal binary mixtures to improve the compactness of the samples. Phys
ical aspects such as porosity, ductility of metals and chemical aspect
s (purity, surface state of AlN powder) must be considered. For AlN-me
tal compacts, it was considered to be of interest to use the hot-press
ing technique in order to reduce porosity by bending metal grains, thu
s to improving thermal conductivity. Published by Elsevier Science Lim
ited.