High Heat Flux, High Temperature Cooling of Electronics With Thermoelectric Devices

Single couple PbTe/TAGS-85 and thin-film superlattice Bi
₂
Te
₃
-based thermoelectric couples operated in a downhill active cooling mode, where the cold side temperature (T
_c
) is above that of the heat sink (T
_h
), are shown to be able to pump heat loads of 204 W/cm
²
(T
_c
~ 300
^°
C) and 329 W/cm
²
(T
_c
~ 150
^°
C), respectively, using a 25
^°
C heat sink temperature. Such TE devices would be useful in active cooling of wide bandgap RF electronics operating ~ 300
^°
C and ~ 150
^°
C, respectively.