Everyone using a laptop is very familiar with the fan that starts when the processor’s temperature reaches 100 F. Laptops and other electronics are becoming thinner and thinner day by day making researchers develop new and quiet but less bulkier cooling methods. One idea that has come up is to use ions to push air molecules across a hot microprocessor that creates a cooling breeze. These methods have been demonstrated in labs before but now a San Jose based international chip-packaging company has demonstrated an ionic-cooling system integrated into a working laptop.

The ionic cooler sits near a vent inside the laptop. Heat pipes are used to transfer heat using the evaporation and condensation of a fluid by drawing away heat from the computer’s processing units and towards the ionic-cooling system. The system has two electrodes, one that ionizes the air such as nitrogen and the other that acts as a receiver for those molecules. When a voltage is applied between the two electrodes, the ions flow from the emitter electrode to the collector. As they move, their momentum pushes the neutral air molecules across a hotspot, cooling it down.

[Technology Review]