Study of a Micro-miniature JT Cooler

The micro-miniature JT cooler is a promising cooling device as an element of the micro-thermal system for semiconductor devices, which dissipate an incredible amount of heat. In particular, the thermal management of laser diodes is a serious problem because they require a large amount of power but must maintain a fixed temperature. Considering such a situation, the performance of a micro-miniature JT cooler was calculated under the assumption of a countercurrent heat exchanger operating with a laminar gas flow, and the guidelines of a micro-miniature JT cooler for optimizing pump power and size were designed from the viewpoint of minimizing the cost. The authors present the results in this paper. A micro-miniature JT cooler was fabricated from Si wafer using a photolithographic process, which is available for operation with C2H6 from 3 MPa to 0.1 MPa. It is shown that a cooling power of 2.1 W was obtained at 239 K with a mass flow of 51.7 mg/s.