Systems and methods for actively cooling ablation electrodes using diodes

摘要

Systems and methods for ablating body tissue using actively cooled electrodes deploy the electrode for contacting tissue to form a tissue-electrode interface. The systems and methods conduct ablation energy to the electrode for transmission by the electrode into tissue at the tissue-electrode interface. The systems and methods simultaneously cool the electrode while the electrode transmits ablation energy using a diode coupled to the electrode for conducting heat energy from the electrode in response to current flow from a current source.