Micro-heat sink based on silicon nanowires formed by metal-assisted chemical etching for heat dissipation enhancement to improve performance of micro-thermoelectric generator

• Main Authors: Van Toan, Nguyen, Ito, Keisuke, Tuoi, Truong Thi Kim, Toda, Masaya, Chen, Po -Hung, Mohd Sabri, Mohd Faizul, Li, Jinhua, Ono, Takahito
• Format: Article
• Published: Elsevier 2022
• Subjects: TJ Mechanical engineering and machinery
• Online Access: http://eprints.um.edu.my/41688/

This work demonstrates the micro-heat sink based on silicon nanowires formed by metal-assisted chemical etching (MACE) for heat dissipation enhancement to improve the performance of the micro-thermoelectric generator (mu-TEG). The heat dissipation through the micro-heat sink is enhanced by increasing the surface-to -volume ratio, which can be achieved by combining deep reactive ion etching (RIE) and MACE. Silicon nano -wires with a diameter of 100 nm and a height of 9 mu m are successfully formed in both horizontal and vertical surface directions. The micro-heat sink effectiveness is 8.3 times better than that of without employing the micro -heat sink. In addition, the performance of the mu-TEG has been significantly enhanced by utilizing the micro-heat sink. The maximum output power of the mu-TEG with and without the micro-heat sink are 93 mu W and 18.5 mu W, respectively, under the same evaluation conditions. The findings in this work may be useful not only for the mu-TEG, but also other applications such as micro-supercapacitors, micro-sensors, chemical analysis, and bio-logical processes, which require a large surface-to-volume ratio.