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Hierarchically designed sticky thermoelectric materials to fabricate thinner Peltier sheets and device architectures

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Abstract

The market of Peltier devices has been growing in the healthcare, automotive, and sensor industries, yet the cooling performance has been constrained because of their rigidity, small area size, and low cooling capacity. Physically speaking, thinner Peltier sheets could solve these long-known issues because of sheet’s enhanced flexibility enabling to attach on various surfaces, larger cooling area for the same amount of thermoelectric (TE) materials used, and better device cooling capacity. To build the thinner Peltier sheet, we enclosed the deformable hierarchically designed sticky TE materials within the punched holes of 0.5-mm thickness middle layer using the upper and bottom electrode layers. We obtained the flexibility as bending φ 20 mm, 5-times less weight per area, and Peltier effect as the temperature differences over 4 °C between the upper and bottom. This paper suggests the hierarchically designed sticky TE materials pave a way to develop and mass-produce thinner Peltier sheets.

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The data generated during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This study was funded by New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), JPNP20004, Norifusa SATOH, and Council for Science, Technology and Innovation (CSTI), Public/Private R&D Investment Strategic Expansion PrograM (PRISM), Jin Kawakita.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), Tsukuba, 305-0044, Japan

    Norifusa Satoh, Masaji Otsuka & Jin Kawakita

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  1. Norifusa Satoh
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  2. Masaji Otsuka
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  3. Jin Kawakita
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Correspondence to Norifusa Satoh.

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Satoh, N., Otsuka, M. & Kawakita, J. Hierarchically designed sticky thermoelectric materials to fabricate thinner Peltier sheets and device architectures. MRS Advances 8, 446–450 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1557/s43580-023-00541-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/s43580-023-00541-1

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