A team of researchers from Pennsylvania State University have recently developed a blend of ferroelectric polymers that could cool chips and small scale systems on demand.
According to NewElectronics these are called electrocaloric materials, and typically an external field is required for them to operate correctly, but the “latest polymer blend can hold absorbed heat even after the external field has been switched off.”
NewElectronics reports that this “anomalous electrocaloric material has a cooling effect when the field is turned on, but no subsequent heating when the field is turned off, other than a minuscule amount of heating generated in the dielectric material by the electric field.”
Researcher Xiaoshi Qian said, “The advantage of the electrocaloric material is its very high efficiency, compared with other solid state coolers, such as the thermoelectric cooler.”
He also claims that this is only the first step to larger “cooling generated upon an electric pulse.”
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