HIGH DENSITY MICRO-THERMOELECTRIC GENERATOR BASED ON ELECTRODEPOSITION OF BI2TE3 AND SB2TE3

This work reports a fabrication and evaluation of a high-density micro-thermoelectric generator (micro-TEG) based on electrodeposition of Bi2Te3 and Sb2Te3. The TEG consists of 240 pairs of thermoelectric elements with dimensions of 200 mu m x 200 mu m x 80 mu m, which is formed on a small footprint of 0.8937 cm(2). An output voltage of the TEG reaches 20 mV under a temperature difference across the TEG of 1.5 degrees C. Moreover, energy harvesting from temperature fluctuations of the environment has been demonstrated. The proposed TEG with the high density shows a high potential to harvest from a small temperature difference at near room temperature as a power source for microdevices.