Fabrication and characterization of a liquid-metal micro-droplet thermal switch

This paper presents the development of a liquid metal micro-droplet array for use as a thermal switch. A method of producing arrays of mercury micro-droplets on a silicon substrate, which is compatible with batch manufacturing, is detailed. A technique for examining the deformation of the micro-droplets under an applied load is offered. For 30 /spl mu/m diameter droplets under deformation, contact diameters ranging from 0-30 /spl mu/m, and forces of 0-0.10 mN are examined. Predicted values of thermal contact resistance and experimental values of normalized heat transfer are presented as a function of applied load to the switch. Both predictions and experiment indicate that a thermal switch whose thermal resistance and heat transfer change by a factor of ten can be fabricated.