As more devices get piled onto computer chips to increase processing power capacity, heat generation becomes increasingly concentrated. This heat must be removed to keep chip performance high, but is currently achieved by circulating water through millimeter-scale channels to cool nanosized hotspots. This scale mismatch reduces the cooling efficiency by consuming more water than necessary, also raising environmental concerns.
Now, researchers at The University of Osaka have developed a strategy to enhance cooling by driving the flow of ions through nanoscale channels. This ionothermoelectric strategy is analogous to the Peltier technique, in which passing an electric current through a material results in heating or cooling. This compelling invention is published in ACS Nano.
"We fabricated a nanosized pore in a semiconductor membrane and surrounded the nanopore with a 'gate,' in the form of a nanowire. Applying a voltage to the gate induced the flow of ions through the nanopore," explains lead author, Makusu Tsutsui. "Varying the voltage modulated the surface charge of the nanopore."
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