[TriEmbed] VERY thin heat shields in research phase

[Pete Soper]

It was my understanding this article was focused on keeping some thing
that couldn't tolerate heat protected from some other thing generating
the heat. Like people inside a house vs a hot summer day outside.
Stacking layers of 10 atom thick sheets of stuff involves empty space of
some sort. I freely admit I'm clueless about what "empty" means in this
context, let alone how the few layers a tiny fraction as thick as the
alternative material does what it does. I got stuck trying to
communicate an analogy to function of the gas in a multipane window and
the notion that a vacuum beats argon.
-Pete

On 8/20/19 1:10 PM, Brian via TriEmbed wrote:
> My undereducated $0.02:
>
> Referring to the insulating layers as "empty space" may not be so
> accurate on a practical scale.  On subatomic scales, of course, all
> matter is mostly empty space; there's relatively tons of nothingness
> between atomic nuclei and their electrons.  I don't get such a strong
> implication that empty space is what's slowing the transfer of heat in
> these materials, though; my takeaway from the article is that it has
> more to do with how well a particular material dampens vibration.  But
> on the other hand, how the atomic-scale empty space in a material is
> distributed might have a lot to do with it.  I'm not even a shade-tree
> quantum mechanic.
>
> At any rate, I'm not sure good insulation is the ticket to further
> miniaturization of electronics.  Isn't heat the enemy?  Robust
> electronics have mechanisms that are good at removing heat from the
> hot things, not holding it all in.  Imagine wrapping your computer's
> CPU in a cozy blanket instead of strapping a huge fan to it.  I
> imagine it would not operate at peak efficiency that way...
>
> -B
>
>
>
> On 8/17/19 1:48 PM, Pete Soper via TriEmbed wrote:
>> Toward the end of this short blurb is the basic notion they're
>> working toward: treating heat the same way you might treat sound with
>> multipane glass to efficiently manage the transfer of thermal energy.
>> It seems implicit that the "insulation" between layers with the
>> scheme mentioned is simply empty space.
>>
>> https://phys.org/news/2019-08-shield-atoms-thick-electronic-devices.html
>>
>> -Pete
>>
>>
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