Summary
We report on miniaturized thermoelectric generators which are being developed to convert waste heat into a few µW of electrical power sufficient to supply microelectronic circuitry. A BiCMOS realization using standard materials is favored to make these generators amenable to low cost applications. In order to optimize our device, the design and the material properties have been studied. The use of micromachining techniques allowed us to improve the thermal efficiency of the generator significantly. Low thermal conductivity of the thermoelectric materials proved to be the most important factor to increase the output power. The materials we have investigated are poly-Si and poly-SiGe. Experimental results of the fabricated devices show good agreement with the predictions of thermal simulations.
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Strasser, M., Aigner, R., Franosch, M., Wachutka, G. (2001). Miniaturized Thermoelectric Generators Based on Poly-Si and Poly-SiGe Surface Micromachining. In: Obermeier, E. (eds) Transducers ’01 Eurosensors XV. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-59497-7_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-59497-7_5
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-42150-4
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