Negative pressures in nanoporous membranes for thin film evaporation

We present a nanoporous membrane-based approach, which decouples the capillary pressure from the viscous resistance, to achieve high driving pressures and efficient liquid delivery for thin film evaporation. By using alumina membranes with approximate to 150 nm pore diameters, absolute liquid pressures as low as -300 kPa were achieved using isopropyl alcohol, while dissipating maximum interfacial heat fluxes of approximate to 96 W/cm(2). Design guidelines are provided to achieve higher interfacial heat fluxes with reduced membrane thicknesses. This work shows a promising approach to address thermal management needs for next generation electronic devices. (C) 2013 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4798243]