TEC is the abbreviation of thermoelectric cooler, which is a kind of heat pumps. In the international arena, a certain effect has been achieved, in the aspects of improving electric piles manufacturing technologies, by using electric insulation heat conducting layer with metal enamel, copper cuprous oxide electric insulation heat conducting layer, compression electric pile structure and themeasures of deflector surface gold plating. However, with the miniaturization of electric piles, the manufacturing process is still the primary factor of pile performance except for element materials.
1.
Reducing the thickness of electric insulation heat conducting layer
The main method to reduce the temperature difference of heat transfer is to reduce the thickness of electric insulation heat conducting layer. Take the 12704 type of thermopile for instance. When using alumina ceramic materials, if the thickness is reduced from 0.8mm to 0.5mm, the thermal resistance will be reduced by 37%, the cold end temperature difference of heat transfer can be reduced up to 0.8℃, and the hot end temperature difference can be reduced up to 4℃. At the same time, welding resistance will also be reduced because the cold deformation of electric insulation heat conducting layer. Reducing the thickness will lead mechanical strength of the whole piles to decrease, which is prone to generating mechanical shock damage. In order to ensure mechanical strength, the substrate size can be reduced. As thermopiles are mainly used for miniature cooling devices whose mechanical strength is not the main indicator, it still meets the requirements when the mechanical strength is reduced.
Other measures for improving the performance of TECs will be introduced in the next article.
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