A two-phase heat spreader for cooling high heat flux sources

A two-phase heat spreader has been developed for cooling high heat flux sources in high-power lasers, high-intensity light-emitting diodes (LEDs), and semiconductor power devices. The heat spreader uses a passive mechanism to cool heat sources with fluxes as high as 5 W/mm² without requiring any active power consumption for the thermal solution. The prototype is similar to a vapor chamber in which water is injected into an evacuated, air-tight shell. The shell consists of an evaporator plate, a condenser plate and an adiabatic section. The heat source is made from aluminum nitride, patterned with platinum. The heat source contains a temperature sensor and is soldered to a copper substrate that serves as the evaporator. Tests were performed with several different evaporator microstructures at different heat loads. A screen mesh was able to dissipate heat loads of 2 W/mm², but at unacceptably high evaporator temperatures. For sintered copper powder with a 50 μm particle diameter, a heat load of 8.5 W/mm² was supported, without the occurrence of dryout. A sintered copper powder surface coated with multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNT) that were rendered hydrophilic showed a lowered thermal resistance for the device.