Efficient Thermoelectric Cooler for Localized Cooling in Electronic Devices

Abstract Modern electronic devices operate at high power density due to increased processing speeds and the miniaturization of electronic chips. Conventional fan cooling alone is not effective. The thermoelectric cooler (TEC) is one of the most viable substitutes, providing site-specific, rapid, and precise cooling. In the present work, we propose an efficient thermoelectric cooler design for mitigating the cooling demand of high-end electronic components such as microprocessors, semiconductor lasers, etc. A 3D numerical model is developed using the finite element method (FEM)-based commercial software COMSOL Multiphysics to investigate the effect of various geometric and operating parameters on the cooling performance of the thermoelectric cooler. The parameters such as fill factor, leg dimensions, heat sink size, and phase change material (PCM) filling pattern in the inter-fin spacings/gaps are optimized. Two heat sink PCM designs, M1 (alternate fin gaps filled) and M2 (all fin gaps filled), are investigated for hotspot mitigation. For no-load conditions, the thermoelectric cooler module with a 20% fill factor produces a cooling of 20.5 °C with an average cooling per unit input power of 37.5 °CW−1. When a heating load of 625 W/cm2 is applied, its cold-side temperature reaches 91 °C. TEC module with n-eicosane PCM (M2 design) provides an effective cooling of 37 °C and an average cooling per unit input power of 42.3 °CW−1.