Borrowing methods from biological imaging, Rochester engineers have developed a way to spot the tiny, overheated components that cause electronics to degrade performance.
When electronic devices like laptops or smartphones overheat, they are fundamentally suffering from a heat transfer problem at the nanoscale. Identifying the source of this problem can be a bit like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
“The basic building blocks of our modern electronics are transistors with nanoscale characteristics. To understand which parts are overheating, the first step is to obtain a detailed temperature map,” explains Andrea PickelAssistant Professor of University of Rochester‘s Department of Mechanical Engineering and a scientist with the Laser Energetics Laboratory“But for that you need something with nanoscale resolution.”
Existing optical thermometry techniques are impractical because they have fundamental limits on the spatial resolution they can achieve. Pickel and colleagues PhD in Materials Science Students Ziyang Ye and Benjamin Harrington have designed a new approach to overcome these limitations by drawing on the Nobel Prize in Chemistry super-resolution fluorescence optical microscopy techniques used in biological imaging. In a new Study on scientific progressThe researchers describe their process of mapping heat transfer using luminescent nanoparticles.
By applying highly doped nanoparticles to the surface of a device, the researchers were able to achieve very high-resolution thermometry at the nanoscale down to 10 millimeters away. That distance is extremely large in the world of super-resolution microscopy, Pickel says, and the biological imaging techniques they drew inspiration from typically work at less than a millimeter.
Pickel explains that while biological imaging techniques are a great source of inspiration, their application to electronics presents significant obstacles because they involve very different materials.
“Our requirements are very different from those of biologists because they’re studying things like cells and water-based materials,” she explains. “Often, they might have a liquid like water or oil between their objective and their sample. That’s great for biological imaging, but if you’re working with an electronic device, that’s the last thing you want.”
The paper presents the technique using an electrical heating structure that the team designed to produce steep temperature gradients, but Pickel says their method can be used by manufacturers to improve a wide range of electrical components. To further improve the process, the team hopes to reduce the laser power used and refine methods for applying layers of nanoparticles to devices.
The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and a Furth Fund award from the University of Rochester.
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