微型温差电池的研究进展

Recent progress in micro-thermoelectric generator

诸如MEMS,微电子系统,甚至于系统芯片等微型化固态装置的应用日益广泛,这类装置通常需要具有低输出功率、高输出电压的微型电源为其供电。基于薄膜热电材料制造的微型温差电池即是一种典型的可以满足上述要求的微型电源。综观已报道的微型温差电池结构,按热传导的方向可分为两类:横向结构和纵向结构。对于横向结构,热量沿着热电腿表面传导,而纵向结构的热量则是沿热电腿的厚度方向传导。综述了此两种结构微型温差电池的最新进展。

Miniaturized solid-state devices such as MEMS, micro-electrical system and even ＂system on a chip＂ are of interest for variety of applications. For those micro-systems, micro-power sources with low power, high output voltage are necessary. Micro-thermoelectric generators （noted as MTEG） based on film thermoelectric materials have been considered to be a very promising candidate. Reviewing those reported MTEG modules, their structures can be divided into two categories according to the heat transferring direction： parallel structure and vertical structure. For the parallel structure, heat transfers along the surface of film TE legs. For the vertical structure, heat transfers along the thickness of film thermoelectric legs （noted as TE legs）.The recent developments of the two category MTEGs were reviewed in this paper.