Making water run uphill Meaning Poss new CPU coolers..

Scientists make water run uphill


Picture Above:
"A water droplet wriggles up a hot piece of brass with sawtooth ridges, like an inchworm."

Toss water on a hot pan and it sizzles and evaporates. Toss water on a really hot pan, and the water beads up and starts roaming around.

Now, turn your hot pan into a hot small staircase and watch the water climb the stairs.

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When scientists heated a piece of brass with sawtooth ridges — a thing that looks like a ratchet — water drops traveled quickly, and in one direction: up.

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The research is scheduled to be published in the April 14 issue of the journal Physical Review Letters.

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If the droplet pumps prove strong enough, Linke said they could be cooling computers in about six years.

In the meantime, schoolteachers have a new trick for the classroom.

Imagine if this works out as expected your cpu wil reach better speeds!

I don't get what the use of this would be for CPU cooling.
Watercooling systems employ pumps so there is a high level of flow because the natural flow of hot/cold water isn't enough to keep a system cool.

I can kinda see where this might be useful - capillaries through the chip itself that would self-pump and increase cooling capacity. Have it circulate through a little radiator where you attach a typical fan that can now cool much more effectively at a lower speed - your computer is cooler, faster, and quieter.

What I wonder is, now that they can get silicon to lase, will the new optical chips generate the same amount of heat? Will we still need this kind of cooling?

God point .. coolers might become obsolete in a few years

If you know anything about a watercooling system, you know that sediments and corossion are big problems in watercooling systems. The reason why you need to maintain and clean these systems from time to time.

Microcapillaries troughout the chip would only work for a few months and with the upcomming .45 fabs that are based on metal floodgates instead of silicon, it'll be an even bigger problem.

Any type of metal differences in the watercooling cycle will result in a battery effect. So if you want to use that kind of method, you'd need to make the radiator thats on-chip the same metal as on the dye. Considering they are using rather exotic metals for this, it would be impossible to make this costefficient.

When you have a watercooling system with a mix of copper and alluminium components (heatsinks, fittings, ...) you'll get a current in the water if there is any type of polution in that water. With that current comes extra corrosion, with corrosion extra sediment, which both, in moderate cases can ruin a good heatsink in a matter of months.

The current flowing trough the water in a watercooling system also brings instability, just like a leaky powersupply brings.

If you run a watercooling system on a PC, you also get to learn the science behind it and know that its not as simple as water flowing and taking heat away.

There's alot more at play and alot more to consider.