Photolithographically Defined Optical Cooling Devices for Electronic Cooling Plane Applications
Navy SBIR FY2018.1


Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2018.1
Topic No.: N181-081
Topic Title: Photolithographically Defined Optical Cooling Devices for Electronic Cooling Plane Applications
Proposal No.: N181-081-1040
Firm: Picotek LLC
3059 Dona Juanita SW
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87121
Contact: Seung-Chang Lee
Phone: (505) 272-7841
Abstract: The current exponential growth of energy consumption in supercomputers and data centers has become an ecological and economical problem for simple reasons of power delivery, power dissipation and heat removal. To go on with the exponential growth in the use of information we need to continue reducing the energy required to handle each bit. This reduction, however, becomes an increasingly harder problem. We propose a new strategy for the more efficient cooling of electronics, where cooling is achieved through efficient anti-Stokes spontaneous emission from quantum dots and low-dimensional structures embedded into a waveguide structure and excited by external laser emission. The physical mechanism is that of laser cooling and requires quantum dots with very efficient anti-Stokes emission. Various designs of the cooling device are explored to find the most efficient way for spontaneous emission extraction to prevent reabsorption and reheating in electronics. The geometry of a single device allows the fabrication of a planar structure for cooling 3D stacks of electronics, where power dissipation and heat removal becomes the most severe problem for the difficulty in designing effective heat sinks. The concept provides a means for implementation of such heat sinks as cooling planes compatible with 3D stacks of electronics.
Benefits: The waveguide cooling platforms in this proposal must impact microelectronics when they are integrated into it for commercialization. Their planar structure has strong advantage in the integration with 3D stack electronics. In Si microelectronics, it can be achieved by well-established wafer bonding technology. In III-V ICs, the cooling platforms can be implemented with single crystalline materials so that the active devices can be epitaxially grown and fabricated on them directly.

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