Noise-based electronic refrigerators-how practical?

Electronic-based refrigerators constitute one class of electrical elements that often work based on the principles of thermoelectric effects. These devices, which are much quieter than their compressor-based counterparts, are gradually gaining more popularity and are sometimes considered replacement candidates for today's compressor-based refrigerators. Over the past few decades, several books and numerous articles have been published on the properties of electronic-based refrigerators and these efforts are still ongoing. Today, several research groups around the globe are investigating the properties of thermoelectric effects and are trying to develop a high-efficiency refrigerator based on these effects. We will discuss the possibility of building an electronic refrigerator based on the properties of noise by introducing a noise-based refrigerator suitable for integrated circuits. We will then focus on the implementation and the efficiency of such a device. Although the efficiency of such a device is too low to be practically useful, this discussion is educational and helps to gain a better understanding of noise in electronic devices.