THERMO-ELECTRO-MECHANICAL REFRIGERATION BASED ON TRANSIENT THERMOELECTRIC EFFECTS

Abstract

This paper introduces the concept of a thermo-electro-mechanical cooler (TEMC), which modifies a traditional thermoelectric cooler (TEC) by using intermittent contact of a mechanical element synchronized with an applied pulsed current. Using Bi2Te3as the thermoelectric material, it is predicted that the maximum temperature drop across a TEMC may be as much as 35 percent higher than that of a TEC in low heat flux applications. This effectively increases the figure of merit by a factor of 1.8.