The thermal barrier problem has been a major bottleneck that hinders the development of high-profile chips and optoelectronic devices. Hence, it is urgent to develop high-performance chip cooling and thermal management technologies to tackle this challenge. As a class of newly emerging thermal management materials, liquid metals have revolutionized the concepts and technologies in the areas of convective cooling, thermal interface materials, and phase change materials. The liquid metals enable cooling technologies to break the performance limit of conventional cooling methods and provide powerful solutions for the cooling of devices and equipment which are faced with tough thermal barrier issues. They are expected to play a key role in areas such as defense equipment, aerospace industry, energy systems, and consumer electronics. This paper is dedicated to a systematic review on the developments and frontiers of liquid metal cooling technologies, mainly including liquid metal convection cooling, liquid metal based thermal interface materials, low melting point metal phase change materials and liquid metal enabled combinatorial heat transfer science and cooling technologies. The main scientific issues and technical challenges lying behind are outlined and discussed in order to help better stimulate the development and applications in the area.

liquid metal  /  chip cooling  /  high heat flux  /  hybrid coolants  /  thermal interface materials  /  phase change materials  /  combinatorial heat transfer science