Can Light Waves Offer an Innovative Solution for Cooling Electronics?

[DC Man]

There must be another way to remove heat from electronic equipment rather than passing cool air over the surface? What about light waves? Can they cool a surface? Can they absorb heat, reflect away heat? Any one have any lateral thoughts?

 

[Q_Goest]

Light won't help. I understand the military and aerospace industry sometimes have circuit boards thermally mounted to heat sinks though. This way they can conduct heat away from the circuit and remove the heat along the edges of the board using either forced air or coolant. One of the big advantages of doing it this way is that the circuit board can be completely sealed off from the environment to preclude moisture, dirt, etc...

 

[FredGarvin]

Look at the Peltier Effect:

http://www.tecooling.com/basics.htm
http://www.digit-life.com/articles/peltiercoolers/

 

[Danger]

I figure the Peltier coolers could also help augment the battery in a portable system, thus increasing the efficiency overall.
Heat pipes (more efficient than heat sinks) or circulating liquid coolant could also be considered. I believe that Russ provided a link to heat pipe info in a previous thread.

 

[DC Man]

Hey, thanks Guys, I'll check out the links...

 

[Mk]

Most overclockers install lots of fans and peltier junctions into their computers.

Some of the US miltary's supercomputers are suspended in alcohol or gels I think (NO tubes). Also used are liquid nitrogen circulation, and plain distilled water circulation (in tubes).