Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have created a new “thermal interface material” that could organically remove heat from high-powered electronic devices, which they claim could reduce or even eliminate the need for extensive cooling. The new material, made from a mix of liquid metal and aluminum nitride, is said to be much better at conducting heat than current commercial materials, making it optimal for cooling.
“The power consumption of cooling infrastructure for energy-intensive data centers and other large electronic systems is skyrocketing,” said Guihua Yu, professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering’s Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering and Texas Materials Institute. “That trend isn’t dissipating anytime soon, so it’s critical to develop new ways, like the material we’ve created, for efficient and sustainable cooling of devices operating at kilowatt levels and even higher power.”
Researcher Kai Wu added: “This breakthrough brings us closer to achieving the ideal performance predicted by theory, enabling more sustainable cooling solutions for high-power electronics. Our material can enable sustainable cooling in energy-intensive applications, from data centers to aerospace, paving the way for more efficient and eco-friendly technologies.”
The research team includes Chuxen Lei of UT’s Materials Science and Engineering program and collaborators Zhengli Dou, Shibo Deng, Die Wu, Bin Zhang, Runlai Li, Yongzheng Zhang and Quiang Fu of Sichuan University, and Haobo Yang of Huazhong University of Science and Technology.
