Repairable, recyclable, and reliable power electronics using liquid metal interconnection

TheProgression of power of power electronics technologies prioritizes efficiency and power density, often paying scant attention to the converter's own lifecycle environmental impact, resulting in significant and unnecessary waste. Traditional packaging and assembling methods of power electronic devices and converters rely on rigid bonding, such as soldering and sintering, to interconnect parts, causing challenges of disassembling and separating parts when repairing and recycling are needed. This letter introduces liquid metal (LM) as a bonding mechanism in power electronic device packaging and converter assembling. The fluidic interconnection using LM is invented to enable parts separation and thermomechanical stress reduction without compromising electrical performance. Therefore, repairable, recyclable, and reliable power electronics is achieved. Straightforward assembling and disassembling processes are demonstrated by a real repair case of the LM-based power stage. Electrical performance is validated by a buck converter, achieving an efficiency of up to 98.2%.