preserves its integrity under temperature gradients and thermal cycling fusible metal mnws are used in applications where the mechanical stresses are comparatively low or for applications where the minimization of device temperature rise or equivalently for high heat flux devices is the priority of the thermal design for example the mechanical stresses are less than approximately 20 megapascals 20 mpa fusible metals undergo a phase change during bonding and can provide direct adhesion to adjacent surfaces however the resulting mnw must be comparatively thick since the bonding metal is stiff and mismatch in the coefficients of thermal expansion can cause the interface to fail in vertically aligned mnws the mnws provide both high thermal conductivity greater than 20 watts per meter kelvin w m k and mechanical compliance for example the mechanical compliance is between approximately 10 megapascals mpa and approximately 100 mpa for example the mechanical compliance is between approximately 10 mpa and 1 000 mpa the mnws themselves provide the mechanical flexibility the bond serves primarily to transfer heat between the surface and the mnw array and to maintain mechanical integrity of the interface while the above representative embodiments have been described with certain components in exemplary configurations it will be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art that other representative embodiments can be implemented using different configurations and or different components for example it will be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art that the time horizon can be adapted in numerous ways while remaining within the invention the representative embodiments and disclosed subject matter which have been described in detail.