Thermal Management and Metamaterials

Abstract

Thermal metamaterials are materials composed of engineered, microscopic structures that exhibit unique thermal performance characteristics based primarily on their physical structures and patterning, rather than just their chemical composition or bulk material properties. In many cases, the heat transfer performance attributes of the thermal metamaterial are such that similar performance cannot be obtained using conventional materials or compounds. Thermal metamaterials are an emerging technology, and are just now beginning to be acknowledged and developed by the microelectronics and material sciences community. This paper presents a series of ten proof-of-concept thermal metamaterial devices. Modeling and testing of these microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) based thermal metamaterial prototypes showed that the electrical and thermal conductivity of the material can be switched or tuned within a certain operational range, and that this switching is a function of passive or active actuation of the metamaterial’s structural elements, not just its chemical composition.