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Room-temperature semiconductor heterostructure refrigeration

Chao, Koung-An LU ; Larsson, Magnus LU and Mal'shukov, AG (2005) In Applied Physics Letters 87(2).
Abstract
With the proper design of semiconductor tunneling barrier structures, we can inject low-energy electrons via resonant tunneling, and take out high-energy electrons via a thermionic process. This is the operation principle of our semiconductor heterostructure refrigerator (SHR) without the need of applying a temperature gradient across the device. Even for the bad thermoelectric material AlGaAs, our calculation shows that at room temperature, the SHR can easily lower the temperature by 5 - 7 K. Such devices can be fabricated with the present semiconductor technology. Besides its use as a kitchen refrigerator, the SHR can efficiently cool microelectronic devices.
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Applied Physics Letters
volume
87
issue
2
publisher
American Institute of Physics (AIP)
external identifiers
  • wos:000230435800021
  • scopus:24144464533
ISSN
0003-6951
DOI
10.1063/1.1992651
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
e50a20d7-cff1-41bf-a233-3ae551e7cb95 (old id 233193)
date added to LUP
2016-04-01 12:23:55
date last changed
2022-01-27 03:10:55
@article{e50a20d7-cff1-41bf-a233-3ae551e7cb95,
  abstract     = {{With the proper design of semiconductor tunneling barrier structures, we can inject low-energy electrons via resonant tunneling, and take out high-energy electrons via a thermionic process. This is the operation principle of our semiconductor heterostructure refrigerator (SHR) without the need of applying a temperature gradient across the device. Even for the bad thermoelectric material AlGaAs, our calculation shows that at room temperature, the SHR can easily lower the temperature by 5 - 7 K. Such devices can be fabricated with the present semiconductor technology. Besides its use as a kitchen refrigerator, the SHR can efficiently cool microelectronic devices.}},
  author       = {{Chao, Koung-An and Larsson, Magnus and Mal'shukov, AG}},
  issn         = {{0003-6951}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{2}},
  publisher    = {{American Institute of Physics (AIP)}},
  series       = {{Applied Physics Letters}},
  title        = {{Room-temperature semiconductor heterostructure refrigeration}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.1992651}},
  doi          = {{10.1063/1.1992651}},
  volume       = {{87}},
  year         = {{2005}},
}