Thin-film-based thermoelectric energy generator device with a card structure

This work presents a thermoelectric energy generator (TEG) device with a card structure which embeds a thin-film based TEG chip. The thermocouples are densely arranged between comb-shaped substrates in the chip. The chip is packaged vertically and heated/cooled by metallic plugs connected with the external heat source and heat sink. The packaged device has a footprint of 3 mm × 1.2 mm, while the height can be flexibly scaled by changing the dimensions of the metallic plugs, which indicates a potential use in the high density electronic devices. The n/p poly-silicon is employed as the thermoelectric material for the early-stage research of the new TEG structure. The measured open-circuit voltage for each TEG card reaches 110 mV·K^-1. Being worn on human body, the output power on a matched external load reached 0.13 μW for 3 cards in parallel, which improves more than two orders of magnitude than traditional in-plane packaged TEG device with poly-silicon thermal legs.