This Special Section of the ASME Journal of Electronic Packaging (JEP) is dedicated to state-of-the-art advancements made in nanoscale and microscale thermal energy transport across a variety of electronics cooling platforms. This topic has quickly emerged as a central issue in electronics packaging, particulary as device length scales approach the mean free path of heat energy carriers and traditional cooling techniques achieve maximum cooling effectiveness. Further, the nanoscale and microscale regimes present unique challenges to dissipating heat from electronics because the physics of energy transport transitions from those described by continuum mechanics to physics that require insight into the way in which quantized microscopic energy carriers traverse within solids and fluids.The set of papers collected as part of this work span a wide variety of areas and provide the readership of JEP with a sampling of important topics in this field. For example, a comprehensive review paper is included to discuss the impacts of nanoscale thermal transport on the performance of emerging devices, such as those used in neuromorphic computing and state-of-the-art power electronics. The paper also provides readers with an exhaustive accounting of how nanostructuring impacts material thermal properties and heat flow across interfaces, and provides individual perspectives on leading devices from 12 experts across 10 separate institutions. The special section also contains invited papers from research groups led by Dr. Nenad Miljkovic (University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign) and Dr. Ankur Jain (University of Texas at Arlington), which describe the development of modular heat sinks for thermal management and backside infrared thermal imaging of semiconductors, respectively. Finally, two papers are included that: (1) evaluate the structural properties of alumina-based ceramic pastes for electronics operating at high temperatures and (2) interrogate the impact of a microchannel/jet impingement cooling technique on the operating conditions of data center servers.It is my hope that such research becomes commonplace in JEP, particularly as the impacts of nanostructuring become more pronounced with continued device miniaturization. Please enjoy the series of papers presented in this special section, and thank you for choosing to read the ASME Journal of Electronic Packaging.
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