In this study, the effects of electrode configuration on the cooling of LED are presented. A total of six needle type electrodes, including sharp, 0.08, 0.12, 0.37, 0.49 R and flat tip, are used to generate ionic wind for cooling of the LED. The effects of electrode configuration, vertical separation height, and tilt angle on the cooling performance of a LED are reported in this study. It is found that the thermal resistance is reduced with the supplied voltage and a maximum 50% reduction is achieved before the spark-over voltage. For the same supplied voltage, the thermal resistance with a larger vertical separation is also higher. However, the operational range is also longer. The effect of tilt angle on the cooling performance of LED depends on the supplied voltage. With a supplied voltage being less than 6.5 kV, it is found that the thermal resistance is increased when the tilt angle is reduced with a tip radius of 0.12 R. However, the trend is reversed when the supplied voltage is higher than 6.5 kV where the thermal resistance of a smaller tilt angle is lower than that of a larger tilt angle. For the same mesh ground, the effect of electrode configurations cast little influence on the final thermal resistance. All the electrodes show an approximately 50% reduction of thermal resistance in association with its original thermal resistance. However, the corresponding threshold voltage and operational voltage differs significantly. The threshold voltage is lowest for the sharp needle and is increased with the rise of tip radius. On the other hand, the corresponding operational range becomes narrower when the tip radius is increased. Yet the spark-over voltage is also insensitive to change of electrode configuration. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.