Designing a fluid pump for microfluidic cooling systems in electronic components

A valveless planar fluid pump based on the diffuser-nozzle principle has been designed and prototyped. The pump is of the reciprocating displacement type and comprises two pump chambers connected in parallel and each actuated by a piezoelectric drive disk on a glass diaphragm. Diffuser/nozzle elements are utilised as a flow rectifier on both sides of each chamber. Prototypes of the pump has been fabricated using stereolithography to verify the pump principle. Subsequent pumps are fabricated using various micro-fabrication techniques on silicon material. A pump head of 105 mm of water has been achieved and design efforts are now focused on increasing the pressure head. The intent is to fabricate the chambers, channels and diffuser/nozzles using the latest techniques such as deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) and anodic bonding. The depth of the pump and the nozzle width are both 0.3 mm.