Research activities of thermoelectric micro-cooler in KIMM

The research activities to develop a thermoelectric micro-cooler, conducted in Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM), are briefly introduced. The final goal of this research is to develop the micro sized thermoelectric cooler with high ZT. In this paper, the related research topics or techniques, such as the three-dimensional numerical simulation using FEMLAB software by considering the electron-phonon thermal non-equilibrium near the interfaces in module, nano-indentation test to determine the mechanical properties of thin film or coating, application of percolation concept in the powdering process to improve the performance of thermoelectric material, RF magnetron sputtering process to make the thin films of bismuth and photo-acoustic technique to measure the thermal conductivity of thin film, are explained. The basic principles, test equipments and some intermediate results are presented.