A highly efficient cascade electrocaloric cooling tube with enhanced temperature change by sawtooth voltage

Abstract

Electrocaloric (EC) cooling technology has emerged as a powerful candidate for the next-generation cooler. Microfluidic EC cooling device could directly be embedded inside microelectronics to build up a highly efficient thermal management system. However, the microfluidic EC cooling device with large temperature lift still remains a big challenge. Here, we prepared a high-performance cascade EC cooling tube with multistage cooling accumulation and improved its cooling power by sawtooth voltage. The cascade EC tube realized a maximum temperature drop of 4.6 K. A maximum temperature span of 4.2 K was obtained when the flow velocity of liquid medium is 10 mm/s. A continuous sub-ambient liquid medium with improved cooling power can be achieved after the cascade EC tube cycle loading with sawtooth voltage. This high-performance cascade EC tube provides a sub-ambient liquid medium, opening up a unique way to enhance the cooling power and realize multistage cooling accumulation. It demonstrates the great application potential in smart thermal management of microelectronic systems.