Update on thermal diodes

Author

Kucherov, Yan ; Hagelstein, Peter L. ; Sevastyanenko, Victor ; Guruswamy, Sivaraman ; Brown, Harold L. ; Thimmegowda, Deepak

Author_Institution

Eneco Inc., Salt Lake City, UT, USA

fYear

2005

fDate

19-23 June 2005

Firstpage

57

Lastpage

60

Abstract

Experiments on thermal diodes in InSb constructed with a p-type blocking layer in an n*pn structure have shown the existence of an optimum in acceptor concentration and width. Results for various potential barrier shapes show that triangle-shaped barriers outperform barriers with rectangular shape. Enhancements have been demonstrated in PbTe thermal diodes. In InSb and in PbTe diodes, the optimum width is on the order of the scattering length, which is different in the two semiconductors by an order of magnitude.

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; IV-VI semiconductors; impurity states; indium compounds; lead compounds; semiconductor diodes; thermoelectric devices; InSb; PbTe; acceptor concentration; acceptor width; n*pn structure; optimum width; p-type blocking layer; potential barrier shapes; scattering length; thermal diodes; triangle-shaped barriers; Cities and towns; Conductivity; Proposals; Scattering; Semiconductor diodes; Shape; Short circuit currents; Thermoelectric devices; Thermoelectricity; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Thermoelectrics, 2005. ICT 2005. 24th International Conference on

ISSN

1094-2734

Print_ISBN

0-7803-9552-2

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICT.2005.1519886

Filename

1519886