Brief Historical Perspective in Thermal Management and the Shift Toward Management at the Nanoscale

ABSTRACT

Since the early days of computing, excess heat has been a major road block in the design and development of faster, more efficient, and more compact electronic devices. Coupled with improvements in thermal management has been a reduction in the size of major electronic components, primarily transistors. This has expanded the field of thermal management down into the nanoscale, where the “rules” of thermal transport become more complicated. This paper presents a brief perspective on the historical challenges in thermal management and outlines the major length scale regimes where thermal management is being developed. In particular, the expansion of thermal management into the nanoscale is presented due to the consequence that as the feature size of most nano-devices continues to diminish, the impact of thermal transport across solid-solid interfaces on device performance, reliability, and lifetime becomes increasingly important.

Additional information

Funding

The authors would like to acknowledge the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (Grant No. FA9550-14-1-0395).

Notes on contributors

Justin L. Smoyer

Justin L. Smoyer is an assistant professor of experimental physics and engineering and founder of the Nanoscale Thermal Science Laboratory in the Department of Physical Sciences at Kutztown University. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in 2015. His current research interests focus on nanoscale thermal heat transfer utilizing frequency domain thermoreflectance measurements.

Pamela M. Norris

Pamela M. Norris is the Executive Associate Dean of Research in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Virginia and the Frederick Tracy Morse professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. After receiving her Ph.D. from Ga Tech in 1992 and completing post-doctoral studies at UC Berkeley with Chang-Lin Tien, she joined the faculty at UVA in 1994, where she founded both the Nanoscale Energy Transfer Lab and the Aerogel Research Lab. She holds patents for applications of aerogels in areas ranging from biological warfare detection, to lab-on-a-chip, to thermal insulation, along with patents for innovative thermal management techniques for jet-blast deflectors. She received the Society of Women Engineers 2016 Distinguished Engineering Educator Award and is a Fellow of ASME.