UC Santa Cruz

An overview of recent advances in solid-state cooling utilizing thin-film silicon, germanium-based microrefrigerators is given. Key parameters affecting micro cooler performance are described. A 3-mum thick 200 x (3 nm Si/12 mn Si0.75Ge0.25) superlattice device can achieve maximum cooling of 4 degreesC at room temperature, maximum cooling power density of 600 W/cm(2) for 40-mum diameter device and fast transient response on the order of tens of micro-seconds independent of the device size. Three-dimensional electrothermal simulations show that individual microrefrigerators could be used to remove hot spots in silicon chips with minimal increase in the overall power dissipation.