Natural advection from a microcantilever heat source

摘要

Fluid motion induced by a microcantilever heat source immersed in water is assessed bynmicroscopic particle image velocimetry. Large fluid velocity is observed near the heated cantilevernand its magnitude increases with cantilever temperature. Neither Brownian nor thermophoreticnmotion of the tracer particles can account for these large velocities. Rather, this fluid motion isnconsistent with buoyancy-driven advection. The observation of natural advection due to anmicroscopic heat source is important for electronics cooling, performance of thermal sensors, andnthe thermal processing of small biological samples.