Geometric Effects on the Transient Cooling of Thermoelectric Coolers

摘要

Transient thermoelectric cooling effect has been known since 1960s. Most of the previous studies focus on the minimum temperature achievable for free standing thermoelectric elements. Practical thermoelectric coolers have a passive mass load, which affect the minimum temperature achievable. This is particularly true for thermoelectric micro coolers because the object to be cooled is comparable to the micro coolers in size. In this paper, we present the performance analysis of the integrated system made of the cooling object and thermoelectric element, and establish the criterion for the utilization of transient cooling effect based on the analysis of the time constants. Effects of thermoelectric element shape on the transient thermoelectric cooling effect are also studied.