Thermoelectric cooler (TEC) is built on the Peltier effect. Due to the internal structure features of semiconductor material, it has more obvious thermoelectric effects than other metals do. Therefore, semiconductor material is usually used for making
TEC.
The cooling capacity of a pair of couple, which consists of P-type and N-type semiconductor, is fairly small. For example, the cooling capacity of the couple (Φ6mm× 7mm) is only 0.92~1.16W. In order to obtain more cooling capacity, many pairs of couple can be formed into thermopile by using series way, which is named single-stage thermopile. However, the single-stage thermopile can only get the temperature difference of about 50℃. In order to get lower temperature in the cold end, the methods of series, parallel or series and parallel can be used to constitute multi-stage thermopile, as shown in the following figures. The hot end of upper thermopile is attached to the cold end of next thermopile, which usually plays a role of
heat sink for the upper thermopile.
Picture of multi-stage thermopile.
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