Now, a more elegant solution is on the horizon. Researchers at Intel, RTI International and have developed a micro-refrigerator that can be easily mounted on chips to draw heat from hot spots with surgical precision.

That would allow these nano-scale (10 micron) systems to be smaller and use less electricity than conventional heat sinks, fans or liquid setups, said Dr. Rama Venkatasubramanian, a senior researcher at RTI and a co-author of in the scientific Nanotechnology.

The refrigerator in your kitchen uses a mechanical heat pump to compress and circulate a coolant liquid that absorbs heat inside the fridge and dissipates it outside.

The micro-refrigerator is quite different. It is a super-thin film made from thermoelectric molecules such as and Antimony telluride.

Thermoelectric materials such as these convert heat into electricity. In other words, "you're using electrons to pump heat away," Venkatasubramanian said.