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On-chip cooling by superlattice-based thin-film thermoelectrics

Nature Nanotechnology volume 4, pages 235–238 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

There is a significant need for site-specific and on-demand cooling in electronic1,2, optoelectronic3 and bioanalytical4 devices, where cooling is currently achieved by the use of bulky and/or over-designed system-level solutions. Thermoelectric devices can address these limitations while also enabling energy-efficient solutions, and significant progress has been made in the development of nanostructured thermoelectric materials with enhanced figures-of-merit5,6,7,8,9,10. However, fully functional practical thermoelectric coolers have not been made from these nanomaterials due to the enormous difficulties in integrating nanoscale materials into microscale devices and packaged macroscale systems. Here, we show the integration of thermoelectric coolers fabricated from nanostructured Bi2Te3-based thin-film superlattices into state-of-the-art electronic packages. We report cooling of as much as 15 °C at the targeted region on a silicon chip with a high (∼1,300 W cm−2) heat flux. This is the first demonstration of viable chip-scale refrigeration technology and has the potential to enable a wide range of currently thermally limited applications.

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Figure 1: Test geometry for the thin-film thermoelectric cooler.
Figure 2: Fabrication steps for the thin-film thermoelectric cooler.
Figure 3: Cooling performance of the thin-film thermoelectric cooler.

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Acknowledgements

Authors from Intel would like to acknowledge the contributions of the late D. Chau, S. R. Cass, S. Devasenathipathy and J. B. Petrini. Authors from RTI International and Nextreme acknowledge the financial support of RTI International, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Office of Naval Research, and the valuable contributions of B. O'Quinn and E. Siivola.

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Author notes

  1. Gregory Chrysler

    Present address: Present address: NMB Technologies Corporation, Tempe, Arizona 85283, USA,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Intel Corporation, Chandler, 85226, Arizona, USA

    Ihtesham Chowdhury, Ravi Prasher, Kelly Lofgreen, Gregory Chrysler, Sridhar Narasimhan & Ravi Mahajan

  2. Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, 85287, Arizona, USA

    Ravi Prasher

  3. Nextreme Thermal Solutions Inc., Durham, 27703, North Carolina, USA

    David Koester & Randall Alley

  4. RTI International, Research Triangle Park, 27709, North Carolina, USA

    Rama Venkatasubramanian

Authors
  1. Ihtesham Chowdhury
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  4. Gregory Chrysler
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Ravi Prasher or Rama Venkatasubramanian.

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Chowdhury, I., Prasher, R., Lofgreen, K. et al. On-chip cooling by superlattice-based thin-film thermoelectrics. Nature Nanotech 4, 235–238 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2008.417

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