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High efficiency cooling solution Solid-state electrochemical thermal transistors: The future of thermal management technology

There are many kinds of high efficiency cooling schemes, such as water cooling plate scheme, TEC cooling chip cooling scheme, and high power heat pipe or VC plate design scheme, but this paper is to elaborate another high efficiency cooling scheme

Key words
High efficiency cooling
Solid-state electrochemical thermal transistors

Article contents

With the development of modern industry, more and more devices need to work to generate a lot of heat. To make these electronic components operate stably and reliably, the heat must be dissipated. For example, in our real life, devices such as laptops and mobile phones The reason it gets hot and requires a cooling solution. However, neither the heat pipe heat dissipation scheme nor the water cooling plate heat dissipation scheme has a new technology with high heat dissipation efficiency.

The idea of ​​using electricity to manage heat has been tested over the past decade, leading to the electrochemical thermal transistor—a device that can regulate heat flow with an electrical signal. The liquid thermal transistors widely used today suffer from a serious flaw: Leakage can cause the device to stop working. In the latest research, a project team led by Professor Hiromichi Ohta of Hokkaido University’s Institute of Electronic Science developed the first solid-state electrochemical thermal transistor, which is more stable and reliable than liquid thermal transistors. The research results were published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials. “A thermal transistor is mainly composed of two materials, the active material and the switching material. The active material has a variable thermal conductivity (κ), and the switching material is used to control the thermal conductivity of the active material.” Professor Hiromichi Ohta introduced. The thermal transistor is built on a yttria-stabilized zirconia substrate that also serves as the switching material, with strontium cobalt oxide as the active material, and platinum electrodes that provide the electricity needed for the transistor.

The study found that the thermal conductivity of the active material in the “on” state was comparable to that of some liquid thermal transistors. Moreover, the thermal conductivity of the active material in the “on” state is four times higher than in the “off” state. In addition, the transistor remained stable after 10 cycles, outperforming some currently used liquid thermal transistors. The team tested on more than 20 individually fabricated solid-state thermal transistors, ensuring reproducible results. The main obstacle to the current development of practical thermal transistors is the high operating temperature of the switching material, which is about 300 °C. “Our findings suggest that solid-state electrochemical thermal transistors have the potential to be comparable to liquid electrochemical thermal transistors, without any limitations. The main obstacle to developing practical thermal transistors is the high electrical resistance of the switching material, so reducing their operating temperature will be a Focus of our future research.

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