A thermoelectric solid-state cooling/heating device applicable for small objects was proposed and fabricated as an alternative to the conventional -shaped device. The device includes a sharp microtip that is positioned between p-and n-type Bi 2 Te 3 -based bulks, and the tip can be easily exchanged when different targets are cooled or heated. The typical tip size is 100 m, and the smallest size is 1 m. The tip temperature reached −36.3°C during cooling at a current of 28 A ͑18.2 W͒ and 251.5°C during heating at a current of 20 A ͑12.2 W͒ when the hot side was set to 26.0°C. The smallest time constant of the device during cooling was as small as 1.0 s at a current of 32 A ͑23.1 W͒, and that during heating was 2.0 s at a current of 20 A.
We studied the impact of the temperature dependence of electrical resistivity on the thermal time constant of our Peltier device with a sandwich structure, which is composed of N‐type Bi2Se0.37Te2.4 and P‐type Bi0.6Sb1.3Te3 bulks. We demonstrated that the current dependence of the thermal time constant is strongly affected by the temperature dependence of the internal electrical resistance of the device, and we also introduced an expression for the relationship between the thermal time constant and four parameters (heat capacity, Seebeck coefficient, thermal conductance, and thermal gradient of internal electrical resistance) for our Peltier device in terms of current.
A novel thermoelectric cooling/heating device was proposed and fabricated as an alternative to the conventional -type device. The novel device is the first since the conventional -type structure was fabricated a half-century ago. The structure includes a sharp tip that is positioned between p-and n-type Bi 2 Te 3 bulks, and the tip can easily be exchanged when different targets are cooled or heated. The tip sizes are 50-100 m when a copper tip is used and 100 nm when a cantilever is used. The tip temperature reached −36.3°C during cooling and 251.5°C during heating. Our device is useful not only for cooling/heating micro-objects but also for heat manipulation of micro-organisms.
We proposed a new type Peltier device, and succeeded in fabrication of the device, which we call a point-contact-type sandwich structure (PCS). A micro-object can be cooled or heated using our fabricated device. The tip was cooled through the Peltier effect. In air, the tip temperature reached -44.7{degree sign}C at 28A. When current was reversed, the tip was heated, and the maximum tip temperature was 221.5{degree sign}C at 20A. Moreover, the minimum time constant of tip temperature was 1.7sec at 35A for cooling, and was 2.1sec at 2A for heating.For an application of PCS device, we fabricated a pen-type Peltier device. The PCS Peltier device can be useful in medical treatment and bioelectronics.
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