The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 26, 1995
Filed:
Jul. 16, 1993
David C Mundinger, Dublin, CA (US);
Donald R Scifres, San Jose, CA (US);
SDL, Inc., San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
A cooling device formed in a thermally conductive substrate having at least one microchannel of dimensions that induce capillary action and a surface in thermal contact with a heated region. The microchannel has a longitudinal opening oriented away from the heated region and is supplied with liquid coolant which is contained by a meniscus near the opening. The coolant vaporizes at the meniscus and absorbs heat but, due to increased pressure in the coolant contained by the meniscus, does not boil within the microchannel, allowing more liquid coolant contact with the thermally conductive substrate and walls. The vaporized coolant is discharged into a chamber facing the opening which can be at a lower pressure to remove additional heat by gaseous expansion. The discharge of gaseous coolant allows the capillary flow of the liquid coolant in the microchannels to be unimpeded, and may be augmented by a fluid pump. The gaseous coolant may be in thermal contact with a condenser that liquefies the coolant for supply to the microchannels, by an array of capillaries, in a self contained cooling device. An array of such devices is provided with holes and stacked to connect adjacent liquid and gaseous coolant flows to cool an array of heated objects, such as laser diode bars.