2 research outputs found
The Race of Nanowires: Morphological Instabilities and a Control Strategy
The incomplete growth of nanowires
that are synthesized by template-assisted
electrodeposition presents a major challenge for nanowire-based devices
targeting energy and electronic applications. In template-assisted
electrodeposition, the growth of nanowires in the pores of the template
is complex and unstable. Here we show theoretically and experimentally
that the dynamics of this process is diffusion-limited, which results
in a morphological instability driven by a race among nanowires. Moreover,
we use our findings to devise a method to control the growth instability.
By introducing a temperature gradient across the porous template,
we manipulate ion diffusion in the pores, so that we can reduce the
growth instability. This strategy significantly increases the length
of nanowires. In addition to shedding light on a key nanotechnology,
our results may provide fundamental insights into a variety of interfacial
growth processes in materials science such as crystal growth and tissue
growth in scaffolds
Enhancement of Pool Boiling Heat Transfer Using Aligned Silicon Nanowire Arrays
Enhancing the critical
heat flux (CHF), which is the capacity of
heat dissipation, is important to secure high stability in two-phase
cooling systems. Coolant supply to a dry hot spot is a major mechanism
to prevent surface burn-out for enhancing the CHF. Here, we demonstrate
a more ready supply of coolant using aligned silicon nanowires (A-SiNWs),
with a high aspect ratio (>10) compared to that of conventional
random
silicon nanowires (R-SiNWs), which have a disordered arrangement,
for additional CHF improvement. We propose the volumetric wicking
rate, which represents the coolant supply properties by considering
both the liquid supply velocity and the amount of coolant (i.e., wicking
coefficient and wetted volume, respectively). Through experimental
approaches, we confirm that the CHF is enhanced as the volumetric
wicking rate is increased. In good agreement with the fabrication
hypothesis, A-SiNWs demonstrate higher coolant supply abilities than
those of R-SiNWs. The longest (7 μm) A-SiNWs have the highest
volumetric wicking rate (25.11 × 10<sup>–3</sup> mm<sup>3</sup>/s) and increase the CHF to 245.6 W/cm<sup>2</sup>, which
is the highest value obtained using nanowires among reported data
(178 and 26% enhanced vs unmodulated plain surface and R-SiNWs, respectively).
These well-aligned SiNWs can increase the CHF significantly with efficient
coolant supply, and it can ensure high stability in extremely high
thermal load systems. Moreover, our study provides nanoscale interfacial
design strategies for further improvement of heat dissipation