Reversing power flow in LEDs could provide new way of cooling for electronics thermal management

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) emit light when electricity is applied in the right direction, yet may provide cooling for electronics thermal management when electricity applied in the wrong direction. Bit-Tech reports. Continue reading original article

The Military & Aerospace Electronics take:

14 Feb. 2019 -- Researchers at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Mich., reversed the electrodes of an infrared LED to take advantage of a little-known physical phenomenon: LEDs with this reverse-bias trick behave as if they were at a lower temperature, which could provide a new way of controlling heat in electronics.

LEDs can absorb infrared light from nearby objects, thereby cooling them, if the LED is as close as only tens of nanometers. At this close proximity, a photon that would not have escaped the object to be cooled can pass into the LED, almost as if the gap between them did not exist, university researchers explain.

There's some way to go before the technology is ready for commercialization, but it could prove usable for quickly drawing heat away from future processors in small-form-factor devices like future wearable computing and smart phones. Supporting this research are officials of the U.S. Army Research Office in Research Triangle Park, N.C., and the U.S. Department of Energy in Washington.

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John Keller, chief editor
Military & Aerospace Electronics

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