Cooling performance of the thermoelectric micro-cooler with its geometrical variation

An analysis has been carried out to figure out the effect of geometry on the cooling performance of the thermoelectric cooler. It is known that tellurium compounds currently have the highest cooling performance around room temperature. Thus, in the present study, Bi2Te3 and Sb2Te3 are selected as the n- and p-type thermoelectric materials, respectively The thermoelectric leg considered is 20-micrometer thick. The coefficient of performance (COP) is the primary factor to evaluate the performance of the cooler and it varies with the current applied to the cooler, the temperature difference, or the cooling power. There is a value of current at which the COP is maximized and the value decreases as the temperature difference increases. The number of pairs and the cross-sectional area of thermoelectric leg affect the overall performance of the thermoelectric micro-cooler such as the COP and cooling power. When the cross-sectional area of the thermoelectric element is small and the number of pairs is large, the micro-cooler is operated at the relatively low current and high voltage.