ABSTRACT
Recently, attention has been paid towards new cooling concepts – other then the conventional convective/conductive heat removal techniques. Thermoelectric cooling6-8 achieved by integrated oncomponent materials of large Seebeck coefficient and low thermal conductivity exploits the Peltier effect i.e. heat transfer through an interface against a temperature gradient with the consumption of electrical energy. Though the overall efficiency of such a solid-state refrigerator is usually low (~10%), this technique might offer an attractive approach for localized heat removal from microscopic areas.
