Scientists have demonstrated a new material that conducts heat 150% more efficiently than conventional materials used in advanced chip technologies.
The device—an ultrathin silicon nanowire—could enable smaller, faster microelectronics with a heat-transfer-efficiency that surpasses current technologies. Electronic devices powered by microchips that efficiently dissipate heat would in turn consume less energy—an improvement that could help mitigate the consumption of energy produced by burning carbon-rich fossil fuels that have contributed to global warming.
"By overcoming silicon's natural limitations in its capacity to conduct heat, our discovery tackles a hurdle in microchip engineering," said Junqiao Wu, the scientist who led the Physical Review Letters study reporting the new device. Wu is a faculty scientist in the Materials Sciences Division and professor of materials science and engineering at UC Berkeley.
To read more, click here.