Self-adaptive passive temperature management for silicon chips based on near-field thermal radiation

Abstract

Temperature management in modern instruments is often a great task, particularly for silicon chip technologies against the background of the ever-increasing demanding for larger scale and higher density electronics integration. Enormous efforts have been made to solve this long-pending issue, mostly relying on active equipment that consume more energy and more space. Here, a compact thermal management technique for silicon chips is proposed, which is able to passively maintain the operation temperature of targets within a wide range of input power. The core part is a self-adaptive near-field thermal radiation system made of a phase-changeable metasurface and graphene/hBN heterostructure with surface plasmon/phonon modes. Numerically, we show that integrated with such a setup, a 0.1-mm thick silicon substrate could automatically maintain its operation temperature within a narrow window (∼333 ± 7 K) when loaded with heat power varied in 0.1–1 W cm−2. As a comparison, the temperature will change 614 or 319 K for a bare or blackbody-coated silicon substrate. The dynamic process of thermal homeostasis is discussed by using the transient thermal equation. The results imply that the current design is suitable for providing a compact, conformal thermal functional coat to passively manage temperatures of heated electronic components, particularly in vacuum.