Exp Fluids (2010) 49:1349–1357
DOI 10.1007/s00348-010-0882-4
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Active thermal management of on-chip hot spots
using EWOD-driven droplet microfluidics
J.-T. Cheng • C.-L. Chen
Received: 18 October 2009 / Revised: 5 March 2010 / Accepted: 7 April 2010 / Published online: 28 April 2010
Ó Springer-Verlag 2010
Abstract In response to the rapid advances in micro-
electronics, novel cooling technologies are needed to meet
increasing cooling requirements. As a paradigm-shifting
technique, electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD) uses
electric potential to control the movement of a liquid
droplet on a dielectric surface. In this work, we developed
an EWOD-based microfluidic technique for active and
adaptive thermal management of on-chip hot spots. A two-
dimensional array of control electrodes was patterned on
the chip surface for EWOD operations. By applying DC or
AC voltages with appropriate sequence and timing to the
electrode units, we were able to transport microdroplets of
tens of lL along a programmable path. Without the need of
external pumps and valves, the droplets were precisely
delivered to cooling targets. With the driving voltage as
low as 40 VAC, we demonstrate high heat flux (7.6 W/cm2)
cooling on a hot spot. The EWOD-induced internal circu-
lation within the droplets led to a time-averaged Nusselt
number of *45.
1 Introduction
The rapid development of high-density power electronics
has led to remarkably challenging thermal issues. Over the
past several decades, transistor development has followed
Moore’s Law, which states that device sizes decrease
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this
article (doi:10.1007/s00348-010-0882-4) contains supplementary
material, which is available to authorized users.
J.-T. Cheng (&)  C.-L. Chen
Teledyne Scientific Company, 1049 Camino Dos Rios,
Thousand Oaks, CA 91360, USA
e-mail: jcheng@teledyne-si.com; jiangtao.cheng@gmail.com
exponentially over time. With the advances in power
semiconductor technologies, the heat flux from power
devices has risen significantly, approaching as high as
250 W/cm2 (Garimella et al. 2008). This level is beyond
the capability of conventional heat sinks used for silicon-
based devices, which can achieve only *20 W/cm2 while
maintaining junction temperature below 150 °C. Therefore,
novel cooling technologies must be developed for efficient
thermal management of high heat-flux devices.
Two decades ago, Tuckerman and Pease introduced the
concept of microchannels (Tuckerman and Pease 1981) to
the electronics cooling industry. Because the heat transfer
efficacy generally increases with decreasing passage size,
the mirochannels should be made as small as possible. The
application of this concept results in a dense package with a
larger surface-area-to-volume ratio and therefore higher
heat transfer than conventional cooling devices. Based on
thermo-fluid analysis, Tuckerman and Pease provided an
optimum microchannel size for realistic pressure differ-
ences, i.e., a 50-lm-wide, 300-lm-deep, 1-cm-long pas-
sage experienced a 30-psi drop with a 0.66-liter-per-minute
water flow. Using this microchannel, a heated device could
dissipate 790 W/cm2 while only experiencing a 71°C
temperature rise, as verified by subsequent experiments.
This remarkable result appeared to provide a new solution
to thermal management of high heat-flux power electron-
ics. However, apart from the high power consumption of
pumps and valves associated with the microchannel sys-
tem, the benefits are attenuated by the increased pressure
losses within the microscale passages and by manufactur-
ing challenges. In addition, the microchannel technique is
not well suited for cases with a dynamic (not in a fixed
position) cooling target.
In many microelectronics systems, concentrated high
heat flux appears in regions known as hot spots, which are
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the warmest elements in a system. Waste heat is usually
removed by conduction, spreading, and convection to air,
thus temperature is gradually reduced from the source to
the air. There is considerable space for performance
improvement of high-power-density electronics through
site-specific thermal management, i.e., through a general
active-passive combination cooling strategy at both the
chip and package level. One approach is to directly insert
an active cooling component (e.g., plasma actuator, vortex
tube, thermoelectric module) into the system. Such a
solution should meet aggressive system-level energy-effi-
cient cooling needs, as in microprocessors and integrated
circuits. Most importantly, the availability of efficient,
high-performance coolers would provide additional options
for thermal system designers.
To date, quite a few active and site-specific cooling
modules are available. Among the most common technol-
ogies, thermoelectric modules have been drawing increased
interest (Bell 2008). A thermoelectric module utilizes the
Peltier Effect to carry heat along with the current through a
series of PN junctions built between the hot and cold sides
of the structure. The current going through the device
requires application of voltage and generates extra heat in
the device that must also be dissipated from the system.
Thermoelectric cooling modules are in wide use for many
applications including focal plane cooling, thermal cycling,
and commercial products such as portable refrigerators. For
applications such as microprocessor cooling, there are
significant demands on the performance of thermoelectric
materials. In order to handle high heat flux (*100 W/cm2),
the design of thermoelectric coolers with conventional
PbTe materials encounters issues with heat dissipation in
electrical contacts as well as other challenges that impact
the performance. The coefficient of performance (COP) for
cooling modules is defined as the amount of added energy
needed to move a unit quantity of heat out of an electronic
device. For conventional PbTe materials, it is very chal-
lenging to carry high flux through temperature differences
of more than a few degrees with COP greater than one. As
a result, thermoelectric coolers are rarely used for cooling
high-power electronic devices today.
Electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD) is a surface-ten-
sion-controlled technique for manipulating tiny liquid
droplets (microdroplets) on a dielectric surface and can be
used for efficient, precisely targeted spot cooling of
microelectronics (Mugele and Baret 2005). An electrode
array embedded beneath the dielectric surface provides
precise control over droplet movement. As we demonstrate
in this work, consecutively and sequentially activating
electrodes to render them either driving or reference elec-
trodes enables the droplet to move in any direction along
any desired flow path on a surface. A common feature of
the EWOD driving scheme is that the actuations are local
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Exp Fluids (2010) 49:1349–1357
on each electrode element and droplets actually hop-skip
over the electrode units one by one, i.e., so-called digital
microfluidics and hence, digitized heat transfer (Baird and
Mohseni 2008). Since no pressure source is needed, an
EWOD-based droplet microfluidics system can be built
without microchannels, micropumps, or microvalves. This
greatly simplifies the cooling system, both in design and
fabrication. The simplicity further presents additional
unique opportunities such as the reduction of dead volumes
and the possibility of portable systems. Another attractive
feature of electrowetting is that the inherent current level is
extremely low (\1 nA), making the EWOD devices ame-
nable to portability and compactness with low power
consumption.
Based on the EWOD technique, greatly improved ther-
mal management systems allow operation of higher-den-
sity electric systems with enhanced performance. These
capabilities offer system designers options to operate
devices at lower temperatures and thereby to gain
improvements in device performance, lifetime, or other
characteristics. Designers may also choose to increase the
power dissipation of systems and gain improvements in
system performance and capabilities. With the success in
EWOD-based microfluidics cooling, thermal designers will
be able to more actively and adaptively control the heat
dissipation of microelectronic systems.
In this paper, we first present our EWOD device design
with embedded Au wire heaters, resistance temperature
detectors (RTDs), a coplanar control electrode array on the
chip, and the detailed microfluidic system fabrication.
Then, we illustrate the EWOD actuation mechanism based
on a resistance-capacitor network analysis of the EWOD
system. Last, we demonstrate two-dimensional (2D)
EWOD-induced droplet transport on a chip surface and its
high-efficiency cooling capabilities.
2 Electrowetting device design and fabrication
While most other EWOD devices typically require sand-
wiching a liquid droplet between two parallel plates that
contain opposing electrodes (i.e., parallel-plate configura-
tion or dual-plate configuration), we have designed coplanar
electrodes to actuate liquid droplets on a single open-plate,
i.e., an open-plate or single-plate configuration as shown in
Fig. 1. Compared with the parallel-plate arrangement, our
single-plate design leads to relatively low flow friction,
which arises only from the base plate, and therefore enables
low-voltage EWOD operations. The simple design and
fabrication procedures further enable the convenient inte-
gration of EWOD devices into an application package.
We selected Corning 7980 fused silica wafers (Stefan
Sydor Optics, Inc.) as the device substrate. For in situ
Exp Fluids (2010) 49:1349–1357 1351

Fig. 1 Cross-sectional view of

an EWOD device in an open-
plate configuration. A
resistance-capacitor (RC)
network representation of the
EWOD system is also illustrated

temperature measurements and heat transfer estimates on
the chip, we designed a mask shown in Fig. 2 with
embedded Au wire heaters (i.e., hot spots) and Au resis-
tance temperature detectors (RTDs). These 2000-Å-thick
Au wire heaters and Au RTDs as well as buses to a flex
cable pad were electron-beam (e-beam) evaporated on the
silica substrate. There are in total six heaters (hot spots) on
the device: 3 small hot spots (3 9 3 mm) and 3 relatively
large ones (3 9 6 mm).
A low driving voltage is desired for actuating liquid
droplets in EWOD operations and implementations. An
optimized electrode design is critical to achieve prompt and
low-voltage droplet actuations (Chatterjee et al. 2009;
Cheng and Chen 2008). To facilitate continuous transport of
droplets, we designed coplanar control electrodes with
interlocked fingers as depicted in Fig. 3. Each electrode unit
is pixellated to be 3 by 3 mm and the electrode pitch deter-
mines the step length of each EWOD actuation. The inter-
locked teeth are 1 mm high and extend outwards. These
interdigitated teeth can facilitate the continuous movement
of a droplet between adjacent electrodes (Chatterjee et al.
2009). Further, the coplanar electrodes arrangement allows
for simple electrical connections through flex cables and
therefore, relatively easy device packaging.
The 128 Au electrode elements were arranged to overlap
with the heaters and RTDs underneath. To insulate the
control electrodes from the underlying Au wire heaters and
RTDs, we deposited a 1.5-lm-thick layer of SiO2 on top of

Fig. 2 An EWOD mask with

an array of 128 electrode units,
two side channel reservoirs, and
6 addressable hot spots. The top
24-pin flex cable is for heaters
and RTDs; the bottom 128-pin
flex cable is for the control
electrode units

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Fig. 3 Schematic of one-pixellated electrode unit with interlocked
teeth on the four peripheral sides
the heaters and RTDs by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor
deposition (PECVD). For signal input to the control elec-
trode array (through a flex cable), via holes in the insula-
tion layer were etched by reactive ion etching (RIE) and we
further e-beam evaporated Au to fill these via holes. Then
an array of Au electrodes, overlapping with the via holes,
was e-beam evaporated on the SiO2 insulation layer.
Through this overlapping arrangement, we were able to
precisely deliver liquid droplets on the top of a hot spot
(instead of just passing it by). In this way, the cooling
efficiency was remarkably increased, i.e., adaptive cooling
by digital microfluidics. A 0.25-lm-thick Si3N4 dielectric
layer was subsequently deposited by PECVD on the top of
the control electrode array. The PECVD-assisted dielectric
deposition can significantly reduce the number of pinholes,
which would otherwise cause a conduction path between
the droplet and the control electrodes. Subsequently,
50 nm of Cytonix fluoropolymer (FluoroPelTM PFC1601 V,
Cytonix Corporation) was applied to create a hydrophobic
dielectric surface. The PFC1601 V was spin coated at 1% in a
fluorinated solvent blend and was thermally baked at 180 °C
for 30 min to optimize the adhesion and to form a solid
hydrophobic film with a surface energy of *1.4 9 10-2 N/m
(i.e., 14 dynes/cm).
Finally, we selectively etched the Si3N4 layer (and the
fluoropolymer layer) by RIE to expose the Au contact pads for
the control electrode array, heaters, and RTDs, respectively.
Then, the device was connected to a controller via a 128-pin
flex cable. We had designed and fabricated a multiple-channel
controller for the EWOD microfluidics system. The custom-
built DC/AC voltage controller has a mouse-controlled
interface and can provide 0–100 V on 128 channels. Once
programmed using the control software, the stand-alone
controller could even run without human interference.
EWOD-based droplet microfluidics can be operated
using either DC or low-frequency AC electric fields. To
actuate a droplet, the assignment of a given electrode as a
driving electrode requires that an adjacent electrode be
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Exp Fluids (2010) 49:1349–1357
assigned as a ground or reference electrode to create a cir-
cuit inclusive with the droplet and thereby enable the
application of an actuation voltage. Under DC voltage, the
manipulated liquid droplet behaves as an electrically con-
ductive body and typically no electric field penetrates the
liquid mass. To protect the dielectric material—especially
under a high electric field (e.g., 5 9 106 V/m), we used an
intermittent actuation mechanism in which voltage was
applied to the driving electrode for only 250 ms. As
designed, when a droplet arrives at a target unit, the power
will be turned off automatically after the pre-defined
250 ms. The 250-ms-long electric pulse is long enough to
activate a droplet because a normal electrowetting response
time is on the order of several milliseconds (Mugele and
Baret 2005). Consequently, this transient activation mech-
anism can avoid the long-period application of a high
electric field on an electrode that would otherwise irre-
versibly polarize and permanently damage the dielectric
layer. Alternatively, we can increase the dielectric thickness
in the range of 0.5–1 lm so that it is able to stand higher
voltages without serious damage to the dielectric layer.
3 Electrowetting theory using AC voltages
As another promising approach to attenuating the side
effect of dielectric polarization, we actuated liquid droplets
by applying AC voltages to the EWOD device. In EWOD
operations, AC signals are highly effective not only for
polarization attenuation but also for reducing electrolysis
on the chip surface (Chatterjee et al. 2009). All patterned
electrodes are actively held at the ground reference except
during their activation state. In particular, we grounded the
neighboring electrodes without grounding the droplet using
a top plate (as in a parallel-plate EWOD configuration).
We developed an electromechanical model for EWOD
actuating liquid droplets by AC voltages in an open-plate
configuration. The electromechanical properties of a
material under the influence of an applied AC electrical
field can be represented by a capacitor C associated with a
resistor R (Chatterjee et al. 2009; Kumari et al. 2008; Jones
et al. 2004). Figure 1 shows the resistance-capacitor (RC)
network representation of the EWOD system. The capac-
itances and resistances associated with the droplet itself,
the dielectric layer under the actuated electrode, and the
dielectric layer under the grounded electrode in the above
network are given by:
e0 jd Aa e 0 jd A g e0 jw Aw
Ca ¼ ; Cg ¼ and Cw ¼ ð1Þ
h h hw
and
h h hw
Ra ¼ ;R ¼ and Rw ¼ ð2Þ
rd Aa g rd A g rw A w
Exp Fluids (2010) 49:1349–1357 1353

where (jd, rd) and (jw, rw) are the (dielectric constant,
electrical conductivity) of the dielectric material (Si3N4
in this case) and the liquid droplet (water), respectively.
Aa is the area of the droplet on the actuated electrode
pad, Ag is the area of the droplet on the grounded
electrode pad and Aw = (Aa ? Ag)/2. h is the dielectric
thickness and hw is the center-to-center distance between
Aa and Ag.
The impedances of the three RC regions are defined
respectively as:
Ra Rg
Za ¼ ;Z ¼ and
1 þ iðxRa Ca Þ g 1 þ iðxRg Cg Þ
Rw
Zw ¼ ð3Þ
1 þ iðxRw Cw Þ

where x = 2pf is the angular frequency of the AC voltage.

In the open-plate configuration, Za, Zw, and Zg are
connected in series. The total capacitance of the RC net- Fig. 4 A resistance-capacitor (RC) network analysis of the droplet
work is given by: actuation force using AC voltages

 1
Ctotal ¼ ð4Þ
ixðZa þ Zg þ Zw Þ to electric fields. DEP force has been utilized in combi-
And the total electrostatic energy stored in the system is nation with EWOD force to demonstrate basic droplet
expressed as: operations such as splitting, dispensing, transport, and
merging (Kumari et al. 2008). Our derived driving force
1 shown in Eqs. (6) and (7) reflects a combination of EWOD
E ¼ Ctotal V 2 ð5Þ
2
and DEP forces whose relative contributions depend on
Substitute Eqs. (3) and (4) into Eq. (5), we get: fluid properties (whether electrically conductive or insu-

R2a Ca gR 2 Cg R2 C
1 þ 1þðxR
1þðxRa Ca Þ2 2 þ
w w
1þðxRw Cw Þ2
g Cg Þ
E ¼ V 2 2  2 ð6Þ
2 Ra R Rw 2 R2a Ca R2g Cg R 2 Cw
1þðxRa Ca Þ2
þ 1þðxRg C Þ2
þ 1þðxR C Þ2
þx 1þðxR C Þ2
þ 1þðxR Þ2
þ 1þðxR
w
2
g g w w a a Cg g w Cw Þ

Hence, the first derivative of the stored energy gives rise
to the lateral (x) driving force:
dE
F¼
dx
To transmit a droplet, the coplanar electrodes are
sequentially activated, so that the electrode (yellow) under the
droplet is set to ground, while the adjacent electrode (red) is
set to the driving voltage (Fig. 1). The apparent contact angle
of the droplet is changed over the area of the driving elec-
trode, and the generated net force (Eq. 7) drives the droplet to
move in the direction of the driving electrode. As shown in
Fig. 1, this activation causes the droplet overlapping both the
yellow and red electrodes to seek an energetically favorable
state by moving so as to become centered along the gap
(interfacial region) between the two electrodes.
Dielectrophoresis (DEP) plays an important role under
high-frequency AC fields where the droplet body is subject
lating) and the applied voltage frequency. Figure 4 shows
the calculated driving forces (including both the EWOD
and DEP contributions) corresponding to various frequen-
ð7Þ cies of the applied AC voltages. It is interesting to note
that the driving force decreases with the increase in the
voltage frequency. Above a critical frequency as high as
12,000 Hz, the droplet would not experience any signifi-
cant actuation force.
The net force on the droplet reverses its direction when
the center of the droplet arrives at the gap between the
grounded electrode and the driving electrode (as denoted
by the arrow in Fig. 4), and thereby prevents the droplet
from further moving forward. To overcome the negative
force, we proposed the following strategy: upon the drop-
let’s arrival at the gap between the electrodes, switch the
driving electrode (i.e., the red unit in Fig. 1) to ground
while simultaneously switching the next adjacent electrode
(i.e., the pink unit) to the driving voltage. In this way, with

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proper electrode actuation sequence and timing, the droplet
would always experience a forward driving force and
therefore continue its forward movement. The inter-
changeable use of the electrodes as the driving element and
the ground element successfully avoids the extra fabrica-
tion of ground electrodes as in (Yi and Kim 2006).
Importantly, the above analysis indicates that the
droplet diameter must be at least twice as large as the
electrode pitch in order for the coplanar actuation strategy
to function. Pursuant to this scaling relationship between
droplet size and electrode pitch, we can develop and
implement not only EWOD-based microfluidics but also
EWOD-based nanofluidics by modifying the electrode
geometry accordingly.
The cooling capacity of the EWOD system is sensitive
to droplet mass. EWOD mechanism can be used to split
discrete droplets from the bulk fluid in a reservoir (Mugele
and Baret 2005). In Fig. 2, the two groups of four elec-
trodes each associated with reservoirs 1 and 2, respectively
were designed for droplet generation. The droplet volume
is mainly dependent on the electrode pitch size. By
choosing appropriate electrode pitch sizes, we can generate
and transport various volumes of droplets to the targeted
hot spots. Droplets of even larger volumes can be formed
by EWOD-controlled merging of individual microdroplets.
4 Results and discussion
Modern electronic systems are driving conflicting needs for
high performance, as well as compact designs. Much effort
has been invested in finding new technologies that can
improve performance while reducing device size and
weight. Unfortunately, in many cases, the power con-
sumption of these systems increases with each improve-
ment. As a result, the performance of heat rejection
technology remains a key limitation in realistic applica-
tions. Interestingly, there is only extremely low current
(\1 nA) associated with EWOD operations. Therefore, the
power consumption of EWOD is on the order of several
lW to mW (Mugele and Baret 2005), which makes it a
more appealing approach to thermal management.
We implemented two-dimensional EWOD transport of
water droplets on a surface using either DC or AC voltages.
By activating the electrode elements in sequence, we can
shuttle a droplet along an arbitrary trajectory or a pro-
grammed path to any addressable target. Figure 5 shows
the snapshots of a droplet transported along a 2D path
toward a hot spot on an EWOD device. The step length of
each droplet actuation is just the electrode pitch, i.e., dig-
itized microfluidics.
Droplet pathways consist of contiguous unit electrodes,
which connect different functional areas of the chip, e.g.,
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Exp Fluids (2010) 49:1349–1357
Fig. 5 Two-dimensional ‘‘hop-skipping’’ of a cooling droplet on an
EWOD chip surface. The liquid droplet is moved on a coplanar
electrode array by sequentially grounding and activating adjacent
electrodes
reservoir, hot spots, and condenser (reservoir 2). The area
of the unit electrode determines the unit droplet volume
since the droplet diameter must be at least two times that of
the electrode pitch in the open-plate configuration. These
electrodes can be used either simply for transport or for
other complex operations such as mixing and merging. The
mixing of two droplets on the chip is simply achieved by
merging them and moving the merged droplet along a path.
Recently, Gong and Kim have also developed two-
dimensional-array EWOD devices using the multilayer
printed circuit board (PCB) method (Gong and Kim 2008).
Because the PCB surface topography and roughness led to
high resistance against droplet movement, Gong and Kim
used 7-lm-thick parylene C as the dielectric layer. The as-
fabricated PCB surfaces require high (*500 V) driving
voltages unless coated with or immersed in oil. Through
additional electrode surface polishing via wet etching or
chemical mechanical polishing (CMP), they reduced the
driving voltage to a range of 55–70 V. In comparison, the
surface of our EWOD devices is relatively smooth without
any deep trenches between the electrodes. Therefore, with
a 0.25-lm-thick Si3N4 dielectric layer coated on the device
surface, the driving voltage is as low as 40 V.
Working as temperature sensors, RTDs exploit the
predictable change in electrical resistance of some mate-
rials (Au) with the changing temperature. We calibrated
the on-chip RTDs with an InstecÒ temperature controller.
It can be seen in Fig. 6 that the resistance of the Au
thermometer varies almost linearly with temperature and
the precision for temperature measurement can reach
*0.04 °C.
Exp Fluids (2010) 49:1349–1357
Fig. 6 A nearly linear relationship between Au RTD resistance and
temperature
Fig. 7 EWOD-induced internal circulation inside a droplet enhances
heat dissipation
In this work, we used Joule heating of an Au wire as the
heat source. The chip-embedded Au wire heaters can help
us accurately estimate the in situ heat flux. By applying
16.5 V to the Au wire heater, the heat flux reached 7.6 W/
cm2 on the hot spot surface of 3 9 3 mm. Since the wire
resistance, and hence, the generated power vary with
temperature, we selected the average heat flux to indicate
the hot spot power. Figure 7 shows the temperature evo-
lution of the hot spot with the EWOD-controlled droplet
actuations. Upon the arrival of a droplet of *39lL, the hot
spot experienced an instantaneous cooling response by
dropping from 147 °C directly to 95 °C within 2 s. The
numerical simulation work by Baird and Mohseni (Baird
1355
and Mohseni 2008) found that droplet motion in an elec-
trowetting system can create internal circulating flow pat-
terns. The internal circulation can drive the relatively cold
fluid from the other parts (i.e., the middle of the droplet in a
parallel-plate EWOD configuration or the top of the droplet
in an open-plate EWOD configuration) of the droplet to the
vicinity of the hot spot surface. The increased local tem-
perature difference between the fluid and the surface can
enhance the heat dissipation process. We believe that the
significant temperature decrease as reflected by the tip in
Fig. 7 is caused not only by the sensible heat but also by
the EWOD-induced heat convection inside the droplet. A
relatively slow evaporation process followed the prompt
cooling and kept the hot spot well below 110 °C for almost
1 min. After complete evaporation of the droplet at
*175 s, the hot spot’s temperature rapidly rose to its ori-
ginal value of 147 °C. The cooling capacity of the droplet
is the combination of its sensible heat and its latent heat,
i.e., Q = cmDT ? mL, where m, c, and L stand for the
mass, the specific heat capacity, and the specific latent heat
of the droplet (water), respectively; D T is the temperature
change of the droplet, which was estimated to be 75 °C,
i.e., the difference between the saturation temperature of
water (Tsat = 100 °C under atmospheric pressure) and the
droplet’s original temperature of 25 °C (room temperature).
Therefore, the heat transferred by the water droplet, Q, is
about 102.1 J. During the 175-second-long cooling pro-
cess, the total heat generated by the hot spot is estimated to
be 118.1 J, which means *86% of the heat was success-
fully dissipated by the EWOD-controlled droplet.
For efficient cooling, it is critical to precisely deliver
liquid droplets on the top of a hot spot. Any deviation from
the target would lead to a significantly reduced cooling
effect. Compared with other cooling methods, the pro-
grammable EWOD approach leads to high-efficiency chip
cooling, owing to its digital characteristics (Cheng and
Chen 2008) and target-oriented ability (Paik et al. 2003).
Figure 7 explicitly demonstrates that droplets, which are
transported along a programmable path to a hot spot, are
able to adaptively and efficiently cool down the target.
Furthermore, along any projected paths that were pro-
grammed by the control software, multiple droplets can be
independently manipulated and can even be transported in
parallel to multiple targets. To maintain a hot spot’s tem-
perature below a desired degree, a sequence of droplets
needs to be sequentially and continuously transported to
the hot spot surface. Figure 8 shows the temperature evo-
lution of a hot spot along with the shuttling of a sequence
of water droplets. Droplets of 23 lL are transported
through different functional areas and recycled on the
patterned electrode grids, traveling through different paths
depending on the position of the hot spots. A remarkable
cooling occurred whenever a droplet was delivered just on
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Fig. 8 Active hot spot cooling using a sequence of droplets
Fig. 9 Continuous cooling of a hot spot by EWOD transport of a
sequence of droplets to fulfill the cooling requirement
top of the hot spot surface, owing to the high-resolution
addressing ability of EWOD. Figure 8 also shows the
EWOD-based merging of droplets 3 and 4 on the hot spot
accompanied by an additional 5 °C temperature decrease of
the target.
We further conducted EWOD chip cooling with a rel-
atively high heat flux on a hot spot. The green lines in
Fig. 9 present a 40–50 °C temperature decrease in less than
1.5 s on the hot spot upon the arrival of each droplet, i.e.,
almost instantaneous cooling. The following red segments
indicate the rapid recovery (within 6 s) of the hot spot
temperature after each droplet’s removal, which necessi-
tates fast and continuous delivery of cooling fluid in order
to maintain the temperature well below a certain degree.
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Exp Fluids (2010) 49:1349–1357
Figure 9 explicitly indicates that in order to effectively
manage the hot spots, we need to mitigate the transient
thermal gradients on a chip very quickly via rapid-response
thermal management strategies (Kumari et al. 2008).
In heat transfer at a boundary (hot spot surface) within a
fluid (water droplet), the Nusselt number is the ratio of
convective to conductive heat transfer across (normal to)
the hot spot surface:
hL
Nu ¼ ð8Þ
kf
where L is the characteristic length (i.e., 3 mm as the hot
spot size), kf is the thermal conductivity of the fluid
(water), and h is the convective heat transfer coefficient,
i.e., the ratio of heat flux to the temperature difference
between the hot spot surface (Ths) and the liquid (Tf).
Because the volumes of the transported microdroplets are
on the order of only tens of lLs, the EWOD-induced
internal circulation can significantly facilitate the thermal
mixing process within the droplets. As inferred from the
temperature tips in Fig. 9, it took only a few seconds for
each delivered water droplet to increase from room tem-
perature to its saturation temperature. Due to the rapid
temperature increase, we assume that during most of the
cooling process, the temperature of each water droplet was
maintained at its saturation temperature, i.e., Tf = 100 °C.
From Fig. 9, the averaged temperature of the hot spot
surface was 107.3 °C. Given the heat flux of 7.6 W/cm2
and the fact that *86% of the heat was dissipated by the
droplets, we deduced the time-averaged Nusselt number in
the EWOD-based cooling process was *45. As pointed
out by Baird and Mohseni in their simulation work (Baird
and Mohseni 2008), the most prominent hydrodynamic
difference between EWOD-based digital microfluidics and
classical continuous flow in a microchannel is the intro-
duction of internal circulation within the droplets. Conse-
quently, the higher Nusselt number indicates that EWOD
cooling provides significant improvements over micro-
channel cooling in heat transfer.
Heat pipes and vapor chambers based on phase-change
heat transfer mechanisms have proven to be an efficient
approach to dissipating heat in many thermal-energy sys-
tems. However, a layer of capillary wick structure fully
covering the chamber walls, e.g., condenser and evaporator
surfaces, creates additional thermal resistance, because the
effective thermal conductivity is much lower in saturated
wicks. This thermal barrier can generate an unacceptable
temperature rise, especially in high heat-flux applications.
Our EWOD cooling system can be viewed as a wickless
heat pipe (or vapor chamber). Compared to heat pipes and
vapor chambers, EWOD cooling approach can actively and
adaptively transport cooling fluid or condensate to hot
spots without any wick structure on the device surface.
Exp Fluids (2010) 49:1349–1357
5 Conclusions
In an open-plate configuration, we developed an analytical
RC network model for estimating the EWOD driving force
under AC condition. In EWOD operation, the electrode
elements on the droplet’s projected track are dynamically
assigned as either driving electrodes or grounding elec-
trodes. With the driving voltage as low as 40 volts, we
successfully demonstrated 2D EWOD transport of a liquid
droplet in any direction along any desired flow path on a
surface. For DC actuation, electrodes were energized for
only 250 ms and were always deactivated after the actua-
tion when the intermittent deactivation protocol was used.
Similar to the AC actuations, this DC pulse prevents
irreparable damage to the chips that could occur if a per-
manent polarization was formed in the dielectric layer. We
further demonstrated the adaptive and active thermal
management of on-chip hot spots using EWOD-controlled
microfluidics. With EWOD-based microdroplet actuations,
the hot spot surface can be cooled down by more than
40 °C within 2 s.
The flexibility and stability of EWOD in combination
with its cost effectiveness and portability make it an ideal
platform to address a wide range of problems in chip
cooling. Key development issues in the future include fast
droplet transport for high heat-flux situations, real-time hot
spot detection via IR imaging, and dynamic cooling target
tracking protocol. In particular, we will implement site-
specific treatments on hot spot surfaces to enable high heat
flux (250 W/cm2) cooling. For example, we can hydro-
philize hot spot surfaces to promote in situ thin-film evap-
oration or introduce nanostructures on the hot spots to
enhance boiling heat transfer. Overall, by investigating the
mechanism of EWOD-controlled vapor-condensate trans-
port in a closed system, we aim to develop a novel heat pipe/
vapor chamber based on the EWOD cooling technique.
1357
Acknowledgments This work was supported by Rockwell Auto-
mation, Inc. The authors thank L. Lin, D. Taber and B. Wen for EWOD
device fabrication, technical assistances, and helpful discussion.
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