Enhancing the Heat-Dissipation Efficiency in Ultrasonic Transducers via Embedding Vertically Oriented Graphene-Based Porcelain Radiators

Nano Lett. 2020 Jul 8;20(7):5097-5105. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c01304. Epub 2020 Jun 9.

Abstract

Ultrasonic transducers with large output power have attracted extensive attentions due to their widespread applications in sonar, acoustic levitation, ultrasonic focusing, and so forth. However, the traditional transducer has almost no heat-dissipation capability itself, strictly relying on the assistant coolant system. Introducing high-performance heat-dissipation component is thus highly necessary. Herein, an embedded porcelain radiator component was designed by combining the excellent thermal conductivity of vertically oriented graphene (VG) with the outstanding heat-dissipation characteristics of thermosensitive ceramics, and a new-type transducer with an embedded VG/ceramic-hybrid radiator was constructed to show high heat-dissipation efficiency (up to ∼5 °C/min). Remarkably, prominent heat-dissipation effectiveness (temperature decline of ∼12 °C), enhanced amplitude and vibration uniformity were also achieved for the new-type transducer along with stabilized operating states. This research should pave ways for extending the applications of VG/ceramic hybrids to heat-dissipation scenarios and provide newfangled thoughts for the performance upgrade of multitudinous high-power devices.

Keywords: heat-dissipation efficiency; plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition; thermal conductivity; ultrasonic transducer; vertically oriented graphene.