[en] Solar thermal power generation is an attractive electricity generation technology as it is environment-friendly, has the potential for increased efficiency, and has high reliability. The design, modelling, and evaluation of solar thermoelectric generators (STEGs) fabricated on a silicon-on-insulator substrate are presented in this paper. Solar concentration is achieved by using a focusing lens to concentrate solar input onto the membrane of the STEG. A thermal model is developed based on energy balance and heat transfer equations using lumped thermal conductances. This thermal model is shown to be in good agreement with actual measurement results. For a 1 W laser input with a spot size of 1 mm, a maximum open-circuit voltage of 3.06 V is obtained, which translates to a temperature difference of 226 °C across the thermoelements and delivers 25 µW of output power under matched load conditions. Based on solar simulator measurements, a maximum TEG voltage of 803 mV was achieved by using a 50.8 mm diameter plano-convex lens to focus solar input to a TEG with a length of 1000 µm, width of 15 µm, membrane diameter of 3 mm, and 114 thermocouples. This translates to a temperature difference of 18 °C across the thermoelements and an output power under matched load conditions of 431 nW.
This paper demonstrates that by utilizing a solar concentrator to focus solar radiation onto the hot junction of a TEG, the temperature difference across the device is increased; subsequently improving the TEG's efficiency. By using materials that are compatible with standard CMOS and MEMS processes, integration of solar-driven TEGs with on-chip electronics is seen to be a viable way of solar energy harvesting where the resulting microscale system is envisioned to have promising applications in on-board power sources, sensor networks, and autonomous microsystems.
Disciplines :
Electrical & electronics engineering
Author, co-author :
De Leon, M. T.
Chong, Harold
Kraft, Michaël ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Dép. d'électric., électron. et informat. (Inst.Montefiore) > Systèmes microélectroniques intégrés
Language :
English
Title :
Solar thermoelectric generators fabricated on a silicon-on-insulator substrate
Deng Y and Liu J 2009 Recent advances in direct solar thermal power generation J. Renew. Sust. Energy 1 052701
Strasser M, Aigner R, Lauterbach C, Sturm T, Franosch M and Wachutka G 2004 Micromachined CMOS thermoelectric generators as on-chip power supply Sensors Actuators A 114 362-70
Matsubara K and Matsuura M 2006 Thermoelectric Applications to Vehicles in Thermoelectric Handbook: Macro to Nano ed D Rowe (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press/Taylor and Francis)
Savage N 2011 Photon recycling breaks solar power record IEEE Spectr. 48 16
Chen G, Kraemer D, Muto A, McEnaney K, Feng H, Liu W, Zhang Q, Yu B and Ren Z 2011 Thermoelectric energy conversion using nanostructured materials Proc. SPIE 8031 80311J
Wang J, Liu H, Hu X, Jiang H, Zhao S, Li Q, Boughton R and Jiang M 2001 Progress in skutterudite-based thermoelectric materials Proc. Int. Conf. Thermoelectrics (Beijing, Jun. 2001) 89-92 (Pubitemid 34144349)
Kleinke H 2010 New bulk materials for thermoelectric power generation: clathrates and complex antimonides Chem. Mater 22 604-11
Caillat T and Fleurial J 1996 Zn-Sb alloys for thermoelectric power generation Proc. IECEC (Washington DC, August 1996) 905-9
Gelbstein Y, Dashevsky Z and Dariel M 2008 The search for mechanically stable PbTe based thermoelectric materials J. Appl. Phys 104 033702
Heremans J, Jovovic V, Toberer E, Saramat A, Kurosaki K, Charoenphakdee A, Yamanaka S and Snyder J 2008 Enhancement of thermoelectric efficiency in PbTe by distortion of the electronic density of states Science 321 554-7
Pei Y, Shi X, LaLonde A, Wang H, Chen L and Snyder J 2011 Convergence of electronic bands for high performance bulk thermoelectrics Nature 473 66-9
Pantha B, Dahal R, Li J, Lin J, Jiang H and Pomrenke G 2009 Thermoelectric properties of In0.3Ga0.7N alloys J. Electron. Mater 38 1132-5
Schaeuble N, Aguirre M, Weidenkaff A, Trottmann M, Haemmerli A, Bocher L and Hug P 2008 Aluminium-substituted zinc oxide for thermoelectric energy conversion Proc. Eur. Conf. Thermoelectronics (Paris, July 2008)
Ong K, Singh D and Wu P 2011 Analysis of the thermoelectric properties of n-type ZnO Phys. Rev. B 83 115110-
Fleurial J, Borshchevsky A, Caillat T and Ewell R 1996 New materials and devices for thermoelectric applications Proc. IECEC (Washington DC, August 1996) 1080-5
Caillat T, Fleurial J, Snyder J and Borshchevsky A 2001 Development of high efficiency segmented thermoelectric unicouples Proc. Int. Conf. Thermoelectrics (Beijing, June 2001) 282-5 (Pubitemid 34144394)
Macia E 2004 Compatibility factor of segmented thermoelectric generators based on quasicrystalline alloys Phys. Rev. B 70 100201
Snyder J 2004 Application of the compatibility factor to the design of segmented and cascaded thermoelectric generators Appl. Phys. Lett 84 2436-8
Majumdar A 2004 Thermoelectricity in semiconductor nanostructures Science 303 777-8 (Pubitemid 38174641)
Singh D and Terasaki I 2008 Thermoelectrics: nanostructuring and more Nature Mater 7 616-7
lan Y, Minnich A, Chen G and Ren Z 2010 Enhancement of thermoelectric figure-of-merit by a bulk nanostructuring approach Adv. Funct. Mater 20 357-76
Hochbaum A, Chen R, Delgado R, Liang W, Garnett E, Najarian M, Majumdar A and Yang P 2008 Enhanced thermoelectric performance of rough silicon nanowires Nature 451 163-7
Lee J, Galli G and Grossman J 2008 Nanoporous silicon as an efficient thermoelectric materials Nano Lett 8 3750-4
Bux S, Blair R, Gogna P, Lee H, Chen G, Dresselhaus M, Kaner R and Fleurial J 2009 Nanostructured bulk silicon as an effective thermoelectric material Adv. Funct. Mater 19 2445-52
Ramayya E and Knezevic I 2009 Ultrascaled silicon nanowires as efficient thermoelectric materials Proc. Int. Workshop Computers and Electronics (Beijing, May 2009) 1-4
Cerofolini G, Ferri M, Romano E, Roncaglia A, Selezneva E, Arcari A, Suriano F, Veronese G, Solmi S and Narducci D 2010 Industrially scalable process for silicon nanowires for seebeck generation Proc. Eur. Conf. Thermoelectrics (Como, Italy, Septembr 2010) 147-51
Hao Q, Zhu G, Joshi G, Wang X, Minnich A, Ren Z and Chen G 2010 Theoretical studies on the thermoelectric figure of merit of nanograined bulk silicon Appl. Phys. Lett 97 063109
Kessler V et al 2014 Fabrication of high-temperature-stable thermoelectric generator modules based on nanocrystalline silicon J. Electron. Mater 43 1389-96
Wang X et al 2008 Enhanced thermoelectric figure of merit in nanostructures n-type silicon germanium bulk alloy Appl. Phys. Lett 93 193121
Venkatasubramanian R, Siivola E, Colpitts T and O'Quinn B 2001 Thin-film thermoelectric devices with high room-temperature figure of merit Nature 413 597-602 (Pubitemid 32964053)
Wang W, Jia F, Huang Q and Zhang J 2005 A new type of low power thermoelectric micro-generator fabricated by nanowire array thermoelectric material Microelectron. Eng 77 223-9 (Pubitemid 40391465)
Koukharenko E, Nandhakumar I, Frety N, Beeby S, Cox D, Tudor M, Schiedt B, Trautmann C, Bertsch A and White N 2008 Towards a nanostructured thermoelectric generator using ion-track lithography J. Micromech. Microeng 18 104015
Lan Y, Poudel B, Ma Y, Wang D, Dresselhaus M, Chen G and Ren Z 2009 Structure study of bulk nanograined thermoelectric bismuth antimony telluride Nano Lett 9 1419-22
Minnich A, Dresselhaus M, Ren Z and Chen G 2009 Bulk nanostructured thermoelectric materials: current research and future prospects Energy Environ. Sci 2 466-79
Robert R, Romer S, Reller A and Weidenkaff A 2005 Nanostructured complex cobalt oxides as potential materials for solar thermoelectric power generators Adv. Eng. Mater 7 303-8 (Pubitemid 40822274)
Rowe D 2006 Thermoelectric waste heat recovery as a renewable energy source Int. J. Innov. Energy Syst. Power 1 13-23
Baranowski L, Snyder J and Tobere E 2012 Concentrated solar thermoelectric generators Energ. Environ. Sci 5 9055-67
Telkes M 1954 Solar thermoelectric generators J. Appl. Phys 25 765-77
Amatya R and Ram R 2010 Solar thermoelectric generator for micropower applications J. Electron. Mater 39 1735-40
Baglio S, Castorina S, Fortuna L and Savalli N 2002 Development of autonomous, mobile micro-electro-mechanical devices Proc. IEEE Symp. Circuits Syst 4 285-8
Kraemer D et al 2011 High-performance flat-panel solar thermoelectric generators with high thermal concentration Nature Mater. 10 532-8
Mizoshiri M, Mikami M, Ozaki K and Kobayashi K 2012 Thin-film thermoelectric modules for power generation using focused solar light J. Electron. Mater 41 1713-9
Roncaglia A and Ferri M 2011 Thermoelectric materials in MEMS and NEMS: a review Sci. Adv. Mater 3 401-19
Korvink J and Paul O 2006 MEMS: a Practical Guide to Design, Analysis, and Applications (Norwich, NY: William Andrew)
Bejan A and Kraus A 2003 Heat Transfer Handbook (New York: Wiley)
Welty J, Wicks C, Wilson R and Rorrer G 2008 Fundamentals of Momentum, Heat, and Mass Transfer 5th edn (New York: Wiley)
Weisstein E Quartic equation (MathWorld - a Wolfram Web Resource) http://mathworld.wolfram.com/QuarticEquation.html. Accessed Oct. 2013
Ikeda H and Salleh F 2010 Influence of heavy doping on seebeck coefficient in silicon-on-insulator Appl. Phys. Lett 96 012106
Salleh F, Asai K, Ishida A and Ikeda H 2009 Seebeck coefficient in ultrathin silicon-on-insulator layers Appl. Phys. Express 2 071203
Xie J, Lee C, Wang M, Liu Y and Feng H 2009 Characterization of heavily doped polysilicon films for CMOS-MEMS thermoelectric power generators J. Micromech. Microeng 19 125029
Kasap S 2001 Thermoelectric Effects in Metals: Thermocouples http://materials.usask.ca/samples/Thermoelectric-Seebeck.pdf
Shackelford J and Alexander W 2001 CRC Materials Science and Engineering Handbook (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press)
The Physics Hypertextbook http://physics.info/electric-resistance
