Compact nanostructure integrated pool boiler for microscale cooling applications

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1049/mnl.2010.0070

An efficient cooling system without any external energy consumption that consists of a plate, on which an array of copper nanorods with an average diameter ~100 nm and length ~500 nm is integrated to a planar copper thin film coated silicon wafer surface, a heater, an aluminum base, and a pool was developed. Heat is efficiently transferred from the nanostructure coated base plate to the liquid in the pool through mechanisms of boiling heat transfer. Phase change took place near the nanostructured plate, where the bubbles started to emerge due to wall superheat. Bubble formation and bubble motion inside the pool created an effective heat transfer from the plate surface to the pool. The recorded surface temperature at boiling inception was 102.1°C without the nanostructured plate and it was successfully decreased to 100°C with the use of nanostructured plate. In this study, it is shown that a nanostructured surface approach can have the potential to be an effective method of device cooling for small and excessive heat generating micro-system applications such as micro-electro-mechanical-systems or micro-processors.