Fabrication and Characterization of Ultra‐Lightweight, Compact, and Flexible Thermoelectric Device Based on Highly Refined Chip Mounting

Abstract

Thermoelectric generators (TEGs) are a promising power source for realizing a self‐powered sensor, which is a primary component of the rapidly developing Internet of Things. Here, the fabrication of a prototype for a compact and flexible TEG (CF‐TEG) using ultra‐fine chip mounting technique is reported. The CF‐TEG consisting of 84 p‐n pairs was fabricated on a 10 × 10 mm2 flexible substrate. A temperature difference (dT) of 150 K is successfully established for this TEG. Its maximum output voltage and power density are obtained as 2.4 V and 185 mW cm−2, respectively, which corresponds to a conversion efficiency of 1.12% at dT = 150 K. Further, the experimental results are validated through theoretical analysis in which the contact effects are taken into account. This analysis is also used to elucidate the effect of thermal and electrical contact resistance on the output power. It is observed that ≈40% output power of this device is lost by these resistances, which proves that the contact properties significantly affect the performance of the TEG device.

Series Photothermoelectric Coupling Between Two Composite Materials for a Freely Attachable Broadband Imaging Sheet

“…Concurrently, the further enrichment of CNT film‐based PTE coupling could be a breakthrough in improving photodetection performances as for sensitivity and spatial resolution. The recent development of the TE generator module design has crossed the boundary of flexible electronics, [ 43,44 ] and the printing of the high‐density pixel integration of TE materials superior to Bi (e.g., Bi 2 Te 3 ) on flexible substrates with a scale of 84 PN pairs/10 × 10 mm 2 [ 45 ] represents unique flexible TE conversion techniques. Thus, the built‐in implementation of the CNT thin‐film photoabsorbent channel pixels on steric π‐shaped Bi 2 Te 3 PN structures of flexible frameworks could lead to the emergence of freely attachable, ultrahighly sensitive, high‐resolution, broadband 2D matrix cameras.…”

Sub-50 mV power supply, recursive stacking body bias NAND gate for extremely low-voltage CMOS LSIs

“…Note that the TEG device we use has maximum output voltage and current of 120 mV and 9 mA, respectively, with a temperature difference of 10 K. 29) With the device, we can use 250 000 gates with keeping the TEG voltage higher than 60 mV. However, our proposed NAND gate uses many 03SP87-5…”

Thermal Management Systems and Waste Heat Recycling by Thermoelectric Generators—An Overview

“…Figure 6 provides some examples of the recent applications of thermoelectric generators. According to this figure [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24], the exploration of new TE materials has extended the application of the TEGs from low-temperature range, such as room temperature for capturing human body heat [18,20], to medium temperature for recovering car exhaust heat [21], and then they have been functionalized at high temperatures for NASA emissions to empower discovery rovers [23,24]. Recent decades: 21st century: (a) self-doped conjugated polyelectrolytes (CPEs) has been evaluated as a promising class of conductive organic for organic thermoelectrics (adapted from [16] with permission), (b) photograph of a prototype for a compact and flexible TEG (CF-TEG) using ultra-fine chip mounting technique.…”

“…It is made of 84 p-n pairs fabricated on a 10 × 10 mm 2 flexible substrate. It produced a maximum output voltage and power density of 2.4 V and 185 mWcm −2 , respectively, at ΔT = 150 K (adapted from [17] with permission), (c) photograph of a flexible TEG prototype. It is fabricated by a locknit spacer fabric as the substrate and yarns are coated with waterborne polyurethane/carbon nanotube thermoelectric composites as legs (thermocouples), (adapted from [18] with permission), (d) body-heat harvester made with cotton.…”