ABSTRACT
New solid-state materials are currently being investigated by several research groups with the goal of
achieving higher performance thermoelectric materials for small-scale refrigeration or power generation.
Refrigeration aspects include applications such as cooling electronics (component and computer CPU
cooling) and opto-electronics (cooling IR detectors and temperature stability of laser diodes) for
enhanced performance. Thermoelectric power generation technologies (thermal-to-electrical conver-
sion) are important in providing electrical power from heat gradients. The incorporation of
thermoelectrics in the recovery of large amounts of waste heat from an engine exhaust and harvesting
it into usable electrical energy increases the overall system efficiency. This is presently of greatest interest
as one component of the effort to develop alternative power conversion technologies. It is not likely that
any single technology can solve all or even the majority of the energy needs in the future. It will most
likely be a combination of many different technologies that will be needed. One of these important
technologies will be thermoelectric power generation.
