• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.423-429
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• 2011

Thermoelectric-thick films were fabricated by using a screen printing process of n and p-type bismuth-telluride-based pastes. The screen-printed thick films have approximately 30 ${\mu}m$ in thickness and show rough surfaces yielding an empty gap between an electrode and the thick film. The gap might result in an increase of an electrical resistivity of the fabricated thick-film-type thermoelectric module. In this study, we suggest a conductive metal coating onto the surfaces of the screen-printed paste in order to reduce the contact resistance in the module. As a result, the electrical resistivity of the thermoelectric module having a gold coating layer was significantly reduced up to 30% compared to that of a module without any metal coating. This result indicates that an introduction of conductive metal layers is effective to decrease the contact resistivity of a thick-film-typed thermoelectric module processed by screen printing.

• Transactions of the Society of Information Storage Systems
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.32-38
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• 2014

Heat emission from the laser diode used in the optical disc drive and the defects from the increased temperature at the system have attracted attentions from the field of the information storage device. Thermoelectric refrigerator is one of the fine solutions to solve these thermal problems. The refrigeration performance of thermoelectric device is dependent on the thermoelectric material's figure-of-merit. Meanwhile, high electrical contact resistivity between metal electrode and p- and n-type thermoelectric materials in the device would lead increased total electrical resistance resulting in the degeneracy in performance. This paper represents the manufacturing process of the PbTe-based material which has one of the highest figure-of-merit at medium-high-temperature, ~ 600K to 900 K, and the nickel contact layer for reduced electrical contact resistance at once, and the results showing the decent contact structure and figure-of-merit even after the long-term operation environment.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.187-193
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• 2010

This paper proposes a cooling system using thermoelectric elements for improving the output of building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) modules. The temperature characteristics that improve the output of a BIPV system have rarely been studied up to now but some researchers have proposed a method using a ventilator. The efficiency of a ventilator depends mainly on the weather such as wind, irradiation etc. Because this cooling system is so sensitive to the velocity of the wind, it is unable to operate in the nominal operating cell temperature (NOCT) or the standard test condition (STC) which allow it to generate the maximum output. This paper proposes a cooling system using thermoelectric elements to solve such problems. The temperature control of thermoelectric elements can be controlled independently in an outdoor environment because it is performed by a micro-controller. In addition, it can be operated around the NOCT or the STC through an algorithm for temperature control. Therefore, the output of the system is increased and the efficiency is raised. This paper proves the validity of the proposed method by comparing the data obtained through experiments on the cooling systems of BIPV modules using a ventilator and thermoelectric elements.

• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.55-59
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• 2021

A thermoelectric cooler (TEC) is promising as an alternative refrigeration technology for the sake of its inherent advantages; no-moving parts and refrigerant-free in its operation. Due to the compactness, reliability and excellence in temperature stability, TECs have been widely used for small cooling devices. In recent years, thermoelectric devices have been attractive technologies that not only serve the needs of cooling and heating applications but also meet the demand for energy by recycling waste heat. In this research paper, multistage TEC is proposed as a concept of demonstrating the idea of transient cooling technology. The key idea of transient cooling is to harnesses the thermal mass installed at the interfacial level of the stages. By storing heat temporally at the thermal mass, the multistage TEC can readily reach lower temperatures than that by a steady-state operation. The multistage TEC consists of four different sizes of thermoelectric modules and they are operated with an optimized current. Once the cold-part of the uppermost stage is reached at the no-load temperature, the current is successively supplied to the lower stages with a certain time interval; 25, 50 and 75 seconds. The results show the temperatures that can be ultimately reached at the cold-side of the lowermost stage are 197, 182 and 237 K, respectively. It can be concluded that the timing or total amount of the current fed to each thermoelectric module is the key parameter to determine the no-load temperature.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.219-226
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• 2019

This paper describes the development of a 500W DC/DC converter for use with a thermoelectric module(TEM). A thermoelectric device is a structure in which a P-type semiconductor and an N-type semiconductor are electrically connected in series and thermally connected in parallel. There is a feature that an electromotive force is generated by making a temperature difference between both surfaces of a thermoelectric element. This feature can be used as a renewable power source without the need for fossil energy. The proposed converter boosts the low generation voltage of the thermoelectric element to secure the voltage for the grid connection. This converter is a combination of a resonant converter for boosting and a boost-converter for output voltage control. This structure has an advantage that a voltage can be stepped up at a high efficiency and precise output voltage control is possible. We carry out simulations and experiments to verify the validity.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.56-62
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• 2022

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is a promising technology for the uniform deposition of thin films. ALD is based on a self-limiting mechanism, which can effectively deposit thin films on the surfaces of powders of various sizes. Numerous studies are underway to improve the performance of thermoelectric materials by forming core-shell structures in which various materials are deposited on the powder surface using ALD. Thermoelectric materials are especially relevant as clean energy storage materials due to their ability to interconvert between thermal and electrical energy by the Seebeck and Peltier effects. Herein, we introduce a surface and interface modification strategy based on ALD to control the performance of thermoelectric materials. We also discuss the properties of the interface between various deposition materials and thermoelectric materials.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.695-701
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• 2018

Research into exhaust heat recovery has been actively carried out to improve the thermal efficiency of internal combustion engines. In this study, the performance of thermoelectric generation from exhaust heat recovery for motorcycle engines was analyzed by 1-D thermo-fluid simulation. GT-SUITE, which was developed by Gamma Tech., was used for the simulation of the internal combustion engine and thermoelectric generation system. The basic performance of the engine was analyzed in the range of engine speed of 1000~7000 rpm and engine load of 0~100%. The ratio of exhaust heat energy to fuel chemical energy was found to be about 40~60%. A combined simulation of the engine model and thermoelectric generation model was carried out to analyze the voltage, current and power generated by the thermoelectric material. The generation characteristics of the thermoelectric material was dominantly affected by the exhaust gas temperature. The maximum generated power of the current thermoelectric generation system was found to be about 2.2% of the total exhaust heat energy. The design optimization of the thermoelectric generation system will be carried out to maximize its power generation and economic feasibility.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.11 no.3 s.32
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• pp.83-89
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• 2004

NTC thermistor embedded miniature thermoelectric module was fabricated for the precise temperature control of optical communication device such as laser diode (LD). The miniature thermoelectric module ($7.2 mm{\times}9 mm{\times}2.2 mm$) consists of 21 BiTe thermoelectric couples, the operating temperature is precisely controlled by embedded thermistor with quick response. The figure-of-merit (Z), maximum temperature difference (${\Delta}T_{max}$), maximum cooling capacity ($Q_{max}$) of the miniature thermoelectric module were $2.5{\times}10^{-3}$/K, 72 K, 2.2 W respectively and temperature could be controlled in range of ${\pm}0.1^{\circ}C$ accuracy in air. The fabricated miniature thermoelectric module is suitable for applications of the optical communication packaging.

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
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• v.9 no.12
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• pp.1435-1440
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• 2014

This paper was designed to analyze thermal properties using thermoelectric element for air-cooling heat dissipation of 13.2W-class COB LED. For comparative analysis with generally used air cooling methods, the heat sink was designed and produced, and this experiment was conducted to measure the temperature distribution using a contact thermometer while the COB LED was operating for 100 minutes. One result was about $75^{\circ}C$ for the general cooling method, and the other was $57^{\circ}C$ while the thermoelectric element was operating with applying the current of 0.8A to the thermoelectric element. This results confirmed that the method of applying thermoelectric element was much better in the dissipation of thermal condense on the COB LED than that of the general air cooling one. The temperature on the contact points of COB LED using thermoelectric element was decreased about 31% compared with the air cooling method from $75^{\circ}C$ to $57^{\circ}C$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.304.2-304.2
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• 2014

Chalcogenides (Te,Se) and pnictogens(Bi,Sb) materials have been widely investigated as thermoelectric materials. Especially, Bi2Te3 (Bismuth telluride) compound thermoelectric materials in thin film and nanowires are known to have the highest thermoelectric figure of merit ZT at room temperature. Currently, the thermoelectric material research is mostly driven in two directions: (1) enhancing the Seebeck coefficient, electrical conductivity using quantum confinement effects and (2) decreasing thermal conductivity using phonon scattering effect. Herein we demonstrated influence of annealing temperature on structural and thermoelectrical properties of Bismuth-telluride-selenide ternary compound thin film. Te-rich Bismuth-telluride-selenide ternary compound thin film prepared co-deposited by thermal evaporation techniques. After annealing treatment, co-deposited thin film was transformed amorphous phase to Bi2Te3-Bi2Te2Se1 polycrystalline thin film. In the experiment, to investigate the structural and thermoelectric characteristics of Bi2Te3-i2Te2Se1 films, we measured Rutherford Backscattering spectrometry (RBS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, Scanning eletron microscopy (SEM), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Seebeck coefficient measurement and Hall measurement. After annealing treatment, electrical conductivity and Seebeck coefficient was increased by defect states dominated by selenium vacant sites. These charged selenium vacancies behave as electron donors, resulting in carrier concentration was increased. Moreover, Thermal conductivity was significantly decreased because phonon scattering was enhanced through the grain boundary in Bi2Te3-Bi2Te2Se1 polycrystalline compound. As a result, The enhancement of thermoelectric figure-of-merit could be obtained by optimal annealing treatment.