Thermoelectric generators with electric pulsed output

A thermoelectric generator was built to study the effect of pulsing the output signal because the theory of ultrafast thermoelectric conduction predicts possible increases in output power with a pulsed output. The theory says that the optimum pulse length τ is such that τ/T = 1/2 where T is cycle period. The assembly consists of two commercially available thermoelectric electricity generating modules operated with a constant heating power. It was found for values of m = load resistance/generator internal resistance of less than one, that the pulsed powers, at higher values of the pulse length, exceed those of the DC values at the same value of m. We did not find the τ optimum corresponding to τ/T = 1/2, which may indicate that we are far from optimal operating regime. The measurements are difficult to compare and more measurements are required to confirm this statement.