Leveraging technologies developed under GE’s Nanotechnology Advanced Technology Program, they have fabricated a prototype material that can cool electronic devices such as a laptop computer twice as well as copper.
As Dr. Tao Deng, a senior scientist at GE Global Research and the project leader, writes on the Global Research blog today: “Less overheating means that you can get more power from your gadgets. Imagine more advanced radar systems, better aviation and marine electronic control systems, and the icing on the cake — faster laptops! As electronics become more advanced, we are approaching the point where conventional materials like copper simply can’t take the heat. For computing to go faster and electronic systems to become more capable, better cooling solutions will be needed to allow this to happen.”
Click to enlarge the infographic showing how speed and processing power can be improved. The work is part of a program funded by the Defense Advanced Research Program Agency (DARPA). GE Global Research has been collaborating with GE Intelligent Platforms, the Air Force Research Laboratory, and University of Cincinnati on the project.
Deng explains his work in the video clip below.
As he notes in his blog: “In demonstrations, the prototype system has functioned effectively in a variety of electronics and application environments. We also subjected it to harsh conditions during testing and found it could successfully operate in extremely high gravity applications. More specifically, the prototype has operated in conditions that simulate more than 10 times the normal force of gravity! By comparison, this gravity force is more than four times greater than what someone would experience on the Mission Space ride at Disney. Do you think you could run at the same speed when feeling the 10x the normal weight of gravity? Most likely not; but our prototype can.”
This diagram of GE’s advanced thermal material system shows how unique surface engineered coatings both repel and attract water. GE’s system achieves twice the heat conducting properties of copper and can function under extreme forces of gravity.
Besides the DARPA effort, Dr. Deng is also leading a team, supported by Air Force Research Laboratory, to develop advanced thermal solutions for high-speed flight. These efforts will build a total thermal solution platform to serve multiple GE businesses, including GE Aviation, GE Energy, and GE Intelligent Platforms.
* Read today’s announcement
