Everyone knows that almost any electronic device heats up during its operation. The heat, which is a byproduct, significantly affects the design of electronic devices, in order to avoid them “frying” and failing requires the use of cooling systems of various types. And as the size of electronic devices is shrinking day by day, the problem of isolating certain sensitive components from components and areas that get very hot during operation is becoming increasingly important.
All of the above determines the fact that in some systems of heat management of electronic devices you can find both thermally conductive materials, of which heat sinks and heat sinks are usually made, and thermal insulation materials that enclose individual assemblies and components. But a new material developed by researchers at the University of Chicago blurs the lines between heat conductors and insulators; it conducts heat perfectly in one direction and blocks it almost completely in the other direction.
The key component of the new material is the thinnest film of molybdenum disulfide. Under normal conditions this material conducts heat perfectly, but scientists have discovered that by folding a few sheets of this material and bending a little of the resulting “stack”, you can get almost perfect thermal insulator. Any heat flow is blocked by this material in the “vertical” direction perpendicular to the plane of the molybdenum disulfide sheets, but the heat spreads without any obstacles in the “horizontal” plane of these sheets.
In practice, such material can be used to manufacture heat shields, which are also heat sinks. Such screens can shield sensitive components, such as batteries, from the heat generated by fairly powerful processors of modern smartphones, for example. In addition, such a heat sink screen will allow the heat generated during the battery charging process to be removed from the same battery.
In addition to cooling electronic components, the new material can be used to increase the efficiency of thermoelectric generators, devices that generate electricity by artificially creating a temperature difference between their hot and cold sides.
In the very near future, scientists will conduct similar experiments with other conditionally two-dimensional materials. By doing so, they hope to find new combinations whose thermal efficiency will exceed that of the material based on pure molybdenum disulfide, or will have comparable values at lower production costs.
