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More than half of the waste heat rejected into the environment has temperatures lower than 100 $^\circ C$, which accounts for nearly 85 PWh/year worldwide. Efficiently harvesting low-grade heat could be a promising step toward carbon…
Increasing the maximum cooling effect of a Peltier cooler can be achieved through materials and device design. The use of inhomogeneous, FGM (functionally graded materials) may be adopted in order to increase maximum cooling without…
We study the efficiency at maximum power of two coupled heat engines, using thermoelectric generators (TEGs) as engines. Assuming that the heat and electric charge fluxes in the TEGs are strongly coupled, we simulate numerically the…
Solid-state heat-to-electrical power converters are thermodynamic engines that use fundamental particles, such as electrons or photons, as working fluids. Virtually all commercially available devices are thermoelectric generators, in which…
The radiance of thermal emission, as described by Planck law, depends only on the emissivity and temperature of a body, and increases monotonically with the temperature rise at any emitted wavelength. Nonthermal radiation, such as…
Among several solutions to exploit solar energy, thermophotovoltaics (TPV) have been popularized and have known great breakthroughs during the past two decades. Yet, existing systems still have low efficiencies since the wavelength range of…
Conventional thermionic power generators and refrigerators utilize a barrier in the direction of transport to selectively transmit high-energy electrons. Here we show that the energy spectrum of electrons transmitted in this way is not…
Here, we demonstrate that the power spectral density of thermal radiation at a specific wavelength produced by a body of finite dimensions set up in free space under a fixed temperature could be made theoretically arbitrary high, if one…
Thermoelectric generators (TEGs) based on commercially used thermal super-insulating materials can facilitate sustainable and large-scale ambient waste heat recovery while bequeathing an added economic and environmental value to thermal…
A 3D thermoelectric numerical model is used to investigate different internal heat loss mechanisms for a thermoelectric generator with bismuth telluride p- and n-legs. The model considers all thermoelectric effects, temperature dependent…
A large-area thermoelectric generator (TEG) utilizing a folded thin-film concept is implemented and the performance evaluated for near room temperature applications having modest temperature gradients (< 50 K). The TEGs with the area of…
A huge amount of thermal energy is available close to material surfaces in radiative and non-radiative states, which can be useful for matter characterization or for energy devices. One way to harness this near-field energy is to scatter it…
Radiative coolers that can passively cool objects by radiating heat into the outer space have recently received much attention. However, the ultimate limits of their performance as well as their ideal spectral design are still unknown. We…
We demonstrate theoretically using the atomistic non-equilibrium Green's function formalism with the inclusion of self-consistent charging, the design of a superior thermoelectric generator based on an "anti-reflection" coated double…
The understanding of far-field thermal radiation had directly led to the discovery of quantum mechanics a century ago, and is of great current practical importance for applications in energy conversions, radiative cooling, and thermal…
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…
We elucidate the theoretically maximal thermal radiation power from real materials at a given temperature. Our results demonstrate that the thermal radiation from real materials may be larger than the blackbody emission in free space,and…
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…
Thermionic converters generate electricity from thermal energy in a power cycle based on vacuum emission of electrons. While thermodynamically efficient, practical implementations are limited by the extreme temperatures required for…
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…