Optical Cooling through Quantum Dot Anti-Stokes Upconversion

Optical cooling is a unique and promising method capable of refrigeration to 10 K without moving parts, noise, and vibration. Only a laser is used to pump in light; a semiconducting material up-converts this energy to reject higher energy photons to produce a net cooling effect. Optical cooling can also scale to the thermal load because the cooling power is linearly proportional to the laser power. However, net cooling through semiconductor optical cooling has not been demonstrated in a bulk sample, only at the nanoscale in single nanoribbons.Mainstream will overcome poor efficiencies of conventionally optical coolers by improving each of the components of the optical cooling device to improve the quantum yield, film integration, and emitted photon rejection. The goal of Phase II is to demonstrate a working prototype of an optical cooling device and to validate the potential of optical cooling for cryogenic applications. The Phase II Base will consist of optimization and testing of the system to reduce photonic losses or parasitic heating including modeling of the prototype device design. We will then manufacture the optical cooling prototype to test the optical cooling performance over a range of temperatures and thermal lifts.