University of California

Sri International

Rujun Ma

Qibing Pei

Ziyang Zhang

Roy D Kornbluh

David E Huber

A device including a bottom electrode on a substrate and a top electrode on a substrate separated by a fixed distance from each other. Semi-insulator layers with proper electrical conductivity are attached to the bottom and top electrodes. Disposed between the substrates is a flexible S-shaped polymer stack having electrode layers with one end of the stack attached to the top substrate and the other end in contact with the bottom substrate. When a voltage is applied between the stack and the electrode layer on the bottom substrate, the stack is induced by electrostatic force to deflect in a rolling wave-like motion. While the voltage applied between the stack and bottom electrode is turned off, the static charges on the semi-insulator layer can move away quickly due to the proper electrical conductivity of the semi-insulator layer.

Electrostatically actuated device

A solid-state heat transporting device including a heat transporting element whose uniformity of contact with one or multiple surfaces is controllable so that various amounts of heat may be transported to and from the one or multiple surfaces. The heat transporting element uses the electrocaloric effect to absorb and release the heat and the uniformity of contact is controlled using an electrostatic effect which may change the shape of the heat transporting element. In one embodiment, the heat transporting element is an electrostatically actuated P(VDF-TrFE-CFE) polymer stack achieving a high specific cooling power of 2.8 W/g and a COP of 13 (the highest reported coefficient of performance to date) when used as a cooling device.

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Rujun Ma