International Journal of Thermal Sciences 42 (2003) 1029–1045 www.elsevier.com/locate/ijts An integrated pulse tube refrigeration device with micro exchangers: design and experiments Philippe Nika a,c,∗ , Yannick Bailly a,c , Jean Claude Jeannot b,c , Michel De Labachelerie b,c a Centre de recherche sur les écoulements, surfaces et transferts (CREST)/UMR CNRS 6000 – parc technologique, 2, avenue Jean Moulin, 90000 Belfort, France b Laboratoire de physique et de métrologie des oscillateurs (LPMO), France c Institut des microtechniques de Franche-Comté, 32, avenue de l’observatoire, 25044 Besançon, France Received 18 June 2002; accepted 7 March 2003 Abstract The cooling of electronic components is of great interest to improve their capabilities, especially for CMOS components. The purpose of this paper is to present the principle and the design of a micro cooler dedicated to such application. The originality of the approach concerns both the use of a thermodynamic system and the use of a micro-fabrication technology entirely compatible with the small scale of the component. The cooling function is assumed by a pulsed gas in a small canal (pulse tube) made of glass and of silicon. Specific micro heat exchangers, also made of silicon, have been designed from the results of a study concerning both the pressure drop and the transitory thermal response. The actual micro-cooler performances are estimated in an experimental way by means of temperature and pressure measurements.  2003 Éditions scientifiques et médicales Elsevier SAS. All rights reserved. Keywords: Micro-coolers; Micro heat exchangers; Regenerator; Silicon technology; Design; Experiments 1. Introduction In numerous electronic devices the temperature appears to be an important parameter that limits components capabil- ities so an important request for specific miniature cooling systems exists nowadays. In most applications the cooling function is assumed by a simple ventilation of the com- ponent or of the whole electronic card but despite many improvements of these techniques, they do not operate in all cases and they are limited by ambient temperature. Other passive methods like microchannel heat sinks [1] or Minia- ture Heat Pipes (MHP) [2] have received a great attention and a good level of development has been reached in both for the theory and the applications. High power density with heat flux of a few 100 W·cm -2 have been reached with microscopic flow channels in such devices. However, these systems generally use an evaporating liquid that needs to be recycled after evaporation and in case of imperfect sealing, an electrical risk may damage the electronic com- ponent to be cooled. In MHP system, in order to limit the pressure level while conserving acceptable performances, * Corresponding author. E-mail address: philippe.nika@univ-fcomte.fr (P. Nika). the fluid can be acetone, methanol, ethanol and water and the temperature of electronic applications is in the range from 0 ◦ C to 100 ◦ C and never in the cryogenic range. In addition MPH performances depend mainly of the in- clination of the tube with respect to the gravity. In fact when lower temperatures are required an alternative so- lution based on a specific active cooling device is often to be created. Different solutions have been proposed al- ready such thermoelectric coolers or Stirling and Gifford Mac-Mahon refrigerators. In fact, a good cooler dedicated to electronic components may generate neither mechanical vibrations nor electrical perturbations; it may also have a low electrical consumption and may be relatively small re- garding the component to be cooled. Thereby, the Pulse Tube Refrigerator (PTR) seems to answer these require- ments correctly: no moving mechanical part are used in this kind of device, especially near the cold zone. This means that mechanical vibrations are avoided (which cannot be reached with the Stirling refrigerator). Moreover, the prob- lem of dynamic airtightness due to mechanical movements is very critical at small scale and limits the miniaturiza- tion of classical Stirling refrigerator dramatically: again, the PTR technology allows to imagine a high level of minia- turization to reach a cooler which dimensions are similar 1290-0729/$ – see front matter  2003 Éditions scientifiques et médicales Elsevier SAS. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S1290-0729(03)00081-4