Mixed thick-/thin film thermoelectric microgenerators

Author

Markowski, Piotr ; Dziedzic, Andrzej ; Prociów, Eugeniusz

Author_Institution

Fac. of Microsyst. Electron. & Photonics, Wroclaw Univ. of Technol., Wroclaw

fYear

2008

fDate

1-4 Sept. 2008

Firstpage

601

Lastpage

606

Abstract

In this work we tried to connect advantages of semiconductor based thermocouples and metal based ones to achieve thermopiles with high output voltage and output power sufficient to supply some low-power microelectronic circuits and microsystems. Series of mixed thick-/thin film thermopiles were performed - one of thermocouples arms was made of magnetron sputtered semiconductor (compositions based on Ge), second was screen-printed (PdAg- or Ag-based thick-film layers). The best parameters were achieved for Ge:Sb:W/Ag structure. Generated output voltage per single thermocouple were 20 mV and output electrical power - 0.55 muW, when temperature difference between hot and cold end were 100 K.

Keywords

antimony; germanium; low-power electronics; micromechanical devices; silver; thermocouples; thermoelectric conversion; thermopiles; thick film devices; thin film devices; tungsten; Ge:Sb,W-Ag; low-power microelectronic circuits; magnetron sputtered semiconductor; microsystem; mixed thick-thin film thermoelectric microgenerator; power 0.55 muW; screen-printing; semiconductor based thermocouples; temperature 100 K; thermopiles; voltage 20 mV; Arm; Microelectronics; Power generation; Power supplies; Semiconductor thin films; Sputtering; Thermoelectricity; Thin film circuits; Transistors; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Electronics System-Integration Technology Conference, 2008. ESTC 2008. 2nd

Conference_Location

Greenwich

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-2813-7

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-2814-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ESTC.2008.4684419

Filename

4684419