Solid-state power generation and cooling micro/nanodevices for distributed system architectures

Miniaturized solid-state devices for integrated thermal management packages and low power, high voltage, electrical power source systems are of interest for a variety of space and terrestrial applications. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have been planning the use of much smaller spacecrafts that will incorporate a variety of micro/nanodevices, such as microdetectors and microsensors, into miniature autonomous vehicles, such as microprobes and microrovers. High performance solid-state microcoolers and microgenerators based on thermoelectric, alpha-voltaic and thermionic energy conversion offer attractive solutions to the accelerating trend towards miniaturization of electronic components and distributed "system-on-a-chip" (SOAC) architectures where the functions of sense, compute, actuate, control, communicate and power are integrated. Novel thermoelectric micro/nanodevices that will provide the ability to handle much higher heat fluxes (thus resulting in high cooling power or electrical power densities), possess much faster response time as well as the possibility of generating high voltages under very small temperature differentials are being fabricated. After discussing the potential of thermoelectric and alpha-voltaic microdevices for SOAC architectures, this paper will report on our progress in electrochemical deposition of thermoelectric micro/nanoelements, thermoelectric and alpha-voltaic device microfabrication, techniques as well as the electrical and thermal performance of the first devices.