Corona discharge may enable self-cooling ICs

While they were grad students at Purdue, Dan Schlitz and Vishal Singhal of Thorrn Micro Technologies developed a solid-state fan based on electro-aerodynamic pumping. Their National Science Foundation-funded research resulted in a device that they claim produces three times the flow rate of a typical small mechanical fan at a quarter of the size – smaller than one cubic cm. The tiny (<1 cubic cm) device can cool a 25W chip and has the potential to be integrated into silicon to make self-cooling chips. (Although if it’s really on the order of a cubic cm, integrating it into a chip would be tricky.)

Here’s their description of how electro-aerodynamic pumping works: “Electro-aerodynamic pumping is based on corona discharge…. It involves application of a voltage difference between two electrodes; a geometrically sharp electrode and a blunt electrode. This creates an intense electric field in the region near the sharp electrode and breaks down the air locally. Ions produced in this discharge are attracted to the distant blunt electrode. As they traverse the gap between the electrodes, the ions collide with neutral air molecules creating a body force and a pressure head in the air. This pressure head causes the desired air flow.”

See how this technology compares with a MEMs-based fan, the Synjet, which was developed at Georgia Tech.

Via Slashdot.