Thermo-electro-mechanical refrigeration based on transient thermoelectric effects

This paper introduces the concept of a thermo-electromechanical cooler (TEMC), which modifies a traditional thermoelectric cooler (TEC) by using intermittent contact of a mechanical element synchronized with an applied pulsed current. Using Bi/sub 2/Te/sub 3/ as the thermoelectric material, it is predicted that the maximum temperature drop across a TEMC may be as much as 35 percent higher than that of a TEC in low heat flux applications. This effectively increases the figure of merit by a factor of 1.8.