JAKARTA – Earth’s air is often a natural coolant essential for keeping the electronic systems of military aircraft at a stable temperature, while seawater is also commonly used to cool high-temperature devices on ships.
However, the further away from Earth’s ecosystems, say the outer atmosphere or space, efforts to keep electronic devices at a safe temperature, becomes a complex problem. Starting from artificial cooling devices tend to be heavy, to take up a lot of space, where “space” becomes something valuable in the limited space of an airplane.
Quoted from Popscithere are potential cooling technology findings recently published in ACS Nano. Interestingly, this technology also utilizes plasma.
Plasma is one of the four fundamental states of matter, along with solid, liquid and gas. For example, the forms of plasma matter itself, such as lightning, auroras, and light in neon lamps.
Researchers at the University of Virginia’s Experiments and Simulations in Thermal Engineering (ExSITE) have found a very promising way to quickly cool surfaces by generating a “frozen” glow from plasma.
Using plasma to lower the temperature may seem counterintuitive, in that plasma could easily heat any material rapidly. But a team, led by mechanical and aerospace engineer Patrick Hopkins, discovered the intriguing potential of plasma’s properties.
In an experiment it fired a purple jet of helium-generated plasma through a thin, ceramic-coated needle at a gold-plated target. They then measured the effect on the surface of the target using special microscopic instruments, and they found that the surface that was shot cooled before it started to heat up.
After repeated tests and observations of the phenomenon, the team determined the plasma beam must first strike a micro-thin layer of carbon and water molecules, which rapidly vaporizes the water layer.
“Evaporation of water molecules on the body takes energy; it takes energy from the body, and that’s why you feel cold. In this case, the plasma tears apart the absorbed molecules, energy is released, and that’s what cools,” says Hopkins.
The researchers measured temperature drops of a few degrees over a few microseconds — perhaps not impressive on the human scale, but such differences can be very helpful in delicate and highly sophisticated electronics and instruments.
Going forward, Hopkins’ team will experiment with different gas plasmas, as well as their impact on different materials such as copper and semiconductors.
Finally, the researchers imagined how a robotic arm could find hot spots on a device and then cool it down through tiny plasma shots from the electrodes.
2023-08-04 08:05:15
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