In a surprising discovery, researchers at the University of Virginia have developed a cold plasma gun that can cool surfaces for a few microseconds. Plasma, a mixture of free electrons, ions, and molecules, is known for its high temperatures. However, the team found that short plasma pulses can cool surfaces for a brief period. They have now developed a cooling gun that uses a helium plasma cooling beam to create a short-term cooling effect on materials with a special surface coating. The US Air Force is funding the project with $750,000 to develop a cooling solution that can work in thin air in the upper atmosphere and in space.
The researchers stumbled upon the discovery while working on measuring high-temperature events with high temporal resolution. They found that plasma pulses could cool surfaces for a few microseconds, leading to the development of a cooling gun that uses a helium plasma cooling beam. When the beam hits materials with a special surface coating, it creates a short-term cooling effect by evaporating a thin layer of carbon and water molecules, which extracts energy from the underlying material. The process is similar to sweating, where water evaporates from the skin, cooling it down.
The US Air Force is funding the project to develop a cooling solution that can work in thin air in the upper atmosphere and in space. The goal is to create a cooling solution that can cool high-density semiconductor and electrical components better than the current radiators. The researchers plan to use the funding to increase the duration of the cooling effect by using different surface coatings and gases to generate the plasma. The development of this cold plasma gun could have significant implications for space exploration and high-performance electronics.
