Heat transfer enhancement on silicon chips using carbon nanostructures
Applications like chips become more powerful and smaller simultaneously. A consequence of this is that higher heat fluxes need to be dissipated from smaller areas. A way to cool such applications is by forced convection. By increasing the surface area available for heat transfer carbon nano structures could increase heat transfer from a chip to an air flow. This would allow for more concentrated and/or more powerful small sized applications.
An experimental set-up is designed to test the heat transfer enhancement due to carbon nano structures on 10x10 mm silicon chips. The set-up keeps a chip at a given temperature and measures the power required to do so. Apart from the power consumption the pressure drop of the air flow over a chip is also measured.
Reference measurements were performed on the set-up using bare silicon chips. One sample with carbon nano structures grown on it was tested. An increase in pressure drop was measured while the heat transfer remained the same.
After completing some measurements the reproducibility of the set-up was lost. It is believed this malfunctioning is caused by the “plug” part of the set-up. Recommendations are made regarding the redesign of this part.