Impact of Interface Resistance on Pulsed Thermoelectric Cooling

Abstract

Pulsed thermoelectric cooling is an attractive approach for the site specific thermal management of infrared sensors and other low-heat flux devices. Intense Joule heating caused by electrical interface resistance, however, can severely degrade pulsed cooling performance. Numerical simulations are used to quantify the impact of the interface resistance on pulsed thermoelectric cooling. The degradation in performance is most pronounced for microcoolers that have small bulk resistivity at high pulse amplitudes. Our work also forms a basis for new techniques to probe interfaces in TE devices for energy harvesting as well as cooling applications.