Related papers: Optimal working conditions for thermoelectric gene…
The thermoelectric figure of merit ZT, which is defined using electrical conductivity, Seebeck coefficient, thermal conductivity, and absolute temperature T, has been widely used as a simple estimator of the conversion efficiency of a…
We study the non-equilibrium thermodynamics of a heat engine operating between two finite-sized reservoirs with well-defined temperatures. Within the linear response regime, it is found that the uniform temperature of the two reservoirs at…
We use the general formulation of irreversible thermodynamics and study the minimally nonlinear irreversible model of heat engines operating between a time-varying hot heat source of finite size and a cold heat reservoir of infinite size.…
The influence of electrical and thermal contact resistance on the efficiency of a segmented thermoelectric generator is investigated. We consider 12 different segmented $p$-legs and 12 different segmented $n$-legs, using 8 different…
A thermoelectric device is a heat engine that directly converts heat into electricity. Many materials with a high figure of merit ZT have been discovered in anticipation of a high thermoelectric efficiency. However, there has been a lack of…
We introduce a new class of mesoscopic heat engines consisting of a tunnel junction coupled to a linear thermal bath. Work is produced by transporting electrons up against a voltage bias like in ordinary thermoelectrics but heat is…
In this work, we study the suitability of different thermoelectric materials like $Bi_2Te_3$, $Sb_{2}Te_{3}$, $PbTe$, $TAGS$, $CeFe_{4}Sb_{12}$, $SiGe$ and $TiO_{1.1}$ in estimation of thermoelectric generator's (TEG) efficiency. The…
The work presented in this article describes thermoelectric effect in hollow blocks for heat waste harvesting purposes. The study consists of developing a numerical model formed by a heat transfer equation coupled to thermoelectric effects…
Traditional thermoelectric Peltier coolers exhibit a cooling limit which is primarily determined by the figure of merit, zT. Rather than a fundamental thermodynamic limit, this bound can be traced to the difficulty of maintaining…
The efficiency at maximum power (EMP) for tight-coupling molecular motors is investigated within the framework of irreversible thermodynamics. It is found that the EMP depends merely on the constitutive relation between the thermodynamic…
Environmentally-powered computer systems operate on renewable energy harvested from their environment, such as solar or wind, and stored in batteries. While harvesting environmental energy has long been necessary for small-scale embedded…
Power and efficiency are fundamental criteria for evaluating the performance of thermodynamic cycles. However, it is generally impossible to maximize both simultaneously. In particular, achieving maximum efficiency inevitably leads to…
Thin-film thermoelectric generators with a novel folding scheme are proposed for large-area, low energy-density applications. Both the electrical current and heat transfer are in the plane of the thermoelectric thin-film, yet the heat…
Low-dimensional electronic systems in thermoelectrics have the potential to achieve high thermal-to-electric energy conversion efficiency. A key measure of performance is the efficiency when the device is operated under maximum power…
The search for semiconductors with high thermoelectric figure of merit has been greatly aided by theoretical modeling of electron and phonon transport, both in bulk materials and in nanocomposites. Recent experiments have studied…
We investigate the thermoelectric performance of minimally nonlinear irreversible heat engines with broken time-reversal symmetry (TRS), realized through voltage and voltage-temperature probe configurations. Our framework extends the…
We examine the efficiency of an effective two-terminal thermoelectric device under broken time-reversal symmetry. The setup is derived from a three-terminal thermoelectric device comprising a thermal terminal and two electronic contacts,…
Thermoelectric generation (TEG) has increasingly drawn attention for being environmentally friendly. A few researches have focused on improving TEG efficiency at the system level on vehicle radiators. The most recent reconfiguration…
We analyze an electronic nanoscale thermal machine driven by time-dependent environment: besides bias and gate voltage variations, we consider also the less prevailing time modulation of the couplings between leads and dot. We provide…
Thermoelectric (TE) air cooling is a solid-state technology that has the potential to replace conventional vapor compression-based air conditioning. In this paper, we present a detailed system-level modeling for thermoelectric air…