TY - JOUR
T1 - Physics of thermoelectric cooling
T2 - Alternative approach
AU - Lashkevych, Igor
AU - Cortes, Carlos
AU - Gurevich, Yuri G.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was carried out within the frame of the CONACYT Project No. 46261-F Mexico. Authors thank Professor A. Ya. Shik (University of Toronto, Canada) and Professor Enrique Velazquez-Perez (Salamanca University, Spain) for useful discussions.
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - The paper is devoted to the analysis of thermoelectric cooling phenomena in semiconductors containing potential barriers (p-n -junction). The formulation of an adequate self-consistent theoretical model describing the effect is presented. The role of the recombination rate as a new source of heat in linear approximation of the electric current was discussed, leading to a reformulation of the heat balance equations. The importance of redistribution of nonequilibrium charge carriers, which has been ignored in most publications on this subject, is also shown. The conventional theory of thermoelectric cooling, not taking into account the influence of the nonequilibrium charge carriers, is shown to be inadequate. Besides, when the recombination rate decreases, cooling changes to heating.
AB - The paper is devoted to the analysis of thermoelectric cooling phenomena in semiconductors containing potential barriers (p-n -junction). The formulation of an adequate self-consistent theoretical model describing the effect is presented. The role of the recombination rate as a new source of heat in linear approximation of the electric current was discussed, leading to a reformulation of the heat balance equations. The importance of redistribution of nonequilibrium charge carriers, which has been ignored in most publications on this subject, is also shown. The conventional theory of thermoelectric cooling, not taking into account the influence of the nonequilibrium charge carriers, is shown to be inadequate. Besides, when the recombination rate decreases, cooling changes to heating.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=62549101643&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1063/1.3086629
DO - 10.1063/1.3086629
M3 - Artículo
SN - 0021-8979
VL - 105
JO - Journal of Applied Physics
JF - Journal of Applied Physics
IS - 5
M1 - 053706
ER -