Miniature thermoacoustic cooler
AssigneeMems Optical, Inc.
InventorsZhili Hao, Mark Fowler, Jay A. Hammer, Michael Whitley, David R. Brown
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A MEMS based thermoacoustic cryo-cooler for thermal management of cryogenic electronic devices. The cryogenic cooling system can be integrated directly into a cryogenic electronic device. A vertical comb-drive provides an acoustic source through a driving plate to a resonant tube. By exciting a standing wave within the resonant tube, a temperature difference develops across a stack in the tube, thereby enabling heat exchange between heat exchangers. A tapered resonant tube improves the efficiency of the cooling system, compared with a simple cylinder configuration, leading to reduced harmonics and strong standing waves.
Claims15
An apparatus, comprising:
- a resonant tube in a micro-scale thermoacoustic device;
- an acoustic driver, which creates a standing wave in said resonant tube, wherein the acoustic driver is a vertical comb-drive;
- and
- a stack configured to transport thermal energy from a gas in the resonant tube, wherein the stack has a first side and a second side, each positioned in a different position in the standing wave to create a thermal gradient between the first side and the second side.
A method comprising:
- creating a standing wave in a resonant tube, wherein the standing wave is created by a vertical comb-drive;
- and
- transporting thermal energy from a gas in the resonant tube between a first side and a second side of a stack, wherein the first side and the second side are each positioned in a different position in the standing wave to create a thermal gradient between the first side and the second side.
A method comprising:
- creating a standing wave in a resonant tube;
- transporting thermal energy from a gas in the resonant tube between a first side and a second side of a stack, wherein the first side and the second side are each positioned in a different position in the standing wave to create a thermal gradient between the first side and the second side;
- and
- creating the resonance tube by gray scale etching such that there exists a taper in the resonance tube, where the tapered resonance tube allows standing waves and reduces the occurrence of harmonic waves.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.