Crystal-Based Cooling Could Prevent Future Devices From Overheating

As I write this on a laptop that keeps freezing and refuses to switch between tabs due to the early Indian summer heat, it becomes clear how common overheating issues are. I’m not even running heavy programs or multiple browsers — this old machine just isn’t able to dissipate the heat from its internal components fast enough.

Performance Throttling as Thermal Protection

This heat buildup causes the system to slow down the processor automatically (known as throttling) to prevent damage from high temperatures. But a recent discovery from the University of Virginia’s School of Engineering and Applied Science could change this — all thanks to crystals.

When electronic components like processors run at full speed, they generate significant heat. This is also true for chips in various devices and even the batteries of electric cars. When these components are packed into tight spaces, the heat tends to accumulate and takes a long time to disperse.

In laptops, for example, heat is usually managed with fans, liquid cooling systems, or metal heat sinks with fins. While effective, these solutions take up precious internal space and consume energy.

Now, researchers have come up with a more efficient alternative: instead of letting heat spread slowly like ripples in a pond, their approach channels it into fast, concentrated waves.

The Role of Hexagonal Boron Nitride (hBN) Crystal

To achieve this, they used a special type of crystal called hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), which has unique properties that allow it to conduct heat much more efficiently.

Normally, heat travels through materials via atomic vibrations — known as phonons — which transfer energy in a slow and random way. That’s why heat tends to build up in devices.

However, in hBN, a different mechanism is at play: hyperbolic phonon polariton (HPhP) modes — vibrations coupled with light-like electromagnetic waves. These modes create fast, direct pathways for heat transfer, far more efficient than conventional methods.

It’s like comparing a disorganized crowd (phonons) to a high-speed current (HPhPs). The current can transport a large amount of “energy” much more efficiently from one place to another.

To demonstrate the effect, the researchers applied a gold pad to an hBN substrate and heated the gold. This triggered HPhP modes in the hBN, which quickly directed the heat away from the interface between the gold and the crystal. According to the study, heat transfer was 10 to 100 times more efficient at this interface when HPhPs were involved.

Will Hutchins, lead author of the study published in Nature Materials, said this method works incredibly fast.We’re seeing heat move in ways previously thought impossible in solid materials. It’s a completely new way of controlling temperature at the nanoscale.”

This breakthrough could work with other material combinations too, potentially enabling new cooling systems for a wide range of electronic components. That means faster AI-driven computers and data centers, longer-lasting medical devices, and hopefully, future laptops that won’t need to throttle performance just to stay cool.

Read the original article on: New Atlas

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