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Cooling electronics with jumping droplets

17.04.2017

The problem of heat dissipation in the modern computer industry is acute: despite the reduction in the size of the transistor, the complexity of processors and graphics cores is constantly growing, and along with clock frequencies, which results in a corresponding increase in heat dissipation.

Single-slot video cards of a fairly serious level are becoming less and less common on the market, and bulky LSS have firmly taken the place of air coolers in enthusiast systems. But the "Jumping Droplets" technology (jumping droplets), as its developers promise, can significantly increase the efficiency of cooling systems, especially in the case of hot spots.

The new method works in much the same way as cicadas protect their fragile wings from getting wet. The fact is that with sufficient hydrophobicity (the ability to repel moisture) of the surface, the combination of two tiny droplets of water generates enough energy for the resulting larger drop to break away from this surface itself. The "cicada effect" has been known for quite a long time and is well described in science, but it was the first time that it was possible to apply it for cooling microelectronics. As was found out in the joint work of Intel and Duke University, this property can also be used to cool modern microchips.

The trajectory of droplet jumps can be such that their final destination is a surface requiring active cooling. The main difficulty in the practical implementation of the principle is the search for materials with the required degree of hydrophobicity.

Technically, this is somewhat reminiscent of an evaporation chamber, which, however, works in reverse. The conditional floor of this chamber is made of a hydrophobic material, and the ceiling, on the contrary, is a porous sponge. Hot areas cause the liquid in the ceiling structures to evaporate towards the floor, where it condenses into droplets. There are more drops, they begin to unite - and jump due to the above-described "cicada effect" to the ceiling, after which the cycle repeats, and such a camera will work regardless of the direction of the gravity vector and orientation in space, only the division into "floor" and " ceiling". Such a heat removal system is more efficient than traditional ones, since it works not only on a plane, but also in space, the developers say. At the same time, unlike thermoelectric, it does not require energy supply from outside.

The head of the team, Professor Chen Chuanhua (Chuan-Hua Chen) is sure that soon the new technology will be standardized, and from this point to the release of the first workable cooling systems based on the new principle is one step.

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