온도 프로파일 가시화를 통한 프랙탈 구조 마이크로채널 히트싱크의 열수력학적 특성 최적화

As microchips' degree of integration is getting higher, its cooling problem becomes important more than ever. One of the promising methods is using fractal microchannel heat sink by mimicking nature's Murray networks. However, most of the related works have been progressed only by numerical analysis. Perhaps such lack of direct experimental studies is due to the technical difficulty of the temperature and heat flux measurement in complex geometric channels. Here, we demonstrate the direct visualization of in situ temperature profile in a fractal microchannel heat sink. By using the temperature-sensitive fluorescent dye and a transparent Polydimethylsiloxane window, we can map temperature profiles in silicon-based fractal heat sinks with various fractal scale factors (a=1.5-3.5). Then, heat transfer rates and pressure drops under a fixed flow rate were estimated to optimize hydrodynamic and thermal characteristics. Through this experiment, we found out that the optimal factor is a=1.75, given that the differences in heat transfer among the devices are marginal when compared to the variances in pumping power. This work is expected to contribute to the development of high-performance, high-efficiency thermal management systems required in various industrial fields.