Integrated Device Cooling Based on Hot Electron Emission

"Astralux is developing a new approach to the active cooling of electronics that is intrinsically very efficient, low-volume and low cost. The electronic cooler is based on the Nottingham effect. In the Nottingham effect, cooling results from theextraction of "hot electrons", somewhat analogous to the common evaporative cooling process. Although the Nottingham cooling effect has been known for many years, it has previously worked only at high temperatures. This technology, based onlow-temperature thermionic emission of hot electrons, will lead to active, electronic micro-refrigerators with no moving parts that can be integrated directly onto transistor chips and circuit boards. One such application where the Astraluxelectronic-cooler may offer substantial advantage over other approaches is on-chip cooling of high-power transistors. Astralux will demonstrate a prototype cooler and integrate it with a transistor."