Performance demonstration of cavity-free planar multi-stage bileg and unileg silicon-nanowire thermoelectric generators.

Abstract

Abstract A Thermoelectric (TE) generator is expected to play an important role in the operation of tiny-watt capable wireless power supply devices by converting the waste heat energy into electrical energy. This work is the demonstration of planar cavity-free multi-stage n-type unileg- and bileg Si-nanowire (Si-NW) TE generators. The result shows that the output power of the multi-stage bileg-TE generator increases linearly with increasing the stage number, whereas the rate of increase of the multi-stage unileg-TE generator power output tends to decrease as the stage number increases. Although the power of the multi-stage bileg-TE generator fabricated in this work was smaller than that of the multi-stage unileg-TE generator due to the large internal resistance of p-type elements, however, the improved linearity of the bileg-TE generator than the unileg-TE generator indicates the potential advantage of the multi-stage bileg-TE generator for the large-scale integration.