Low-cost and Efficient Cooling of on-Detector Electronics Using Conformal Thermoelectric Modules

Thermoelectric coolers (TECs) are solid-state devices with no moving parts and working fluids to provide reliable cooling power compared to traditional cooling systems such as vacuum compressors. However, their relatively high cost, small form factor and low efficiency have relegated them to niche applications such as small scaled portable coolers and yet to justify the large volume cooling competitively with conventional technologies. Recent improvements in TE device performances along with the Nanohmics novel concept of flexible and conformal TEC using fiberglass and modified conformal module design will allow to manufacture larger size spread coolers to cool large amount of heat (~ kilowatts) more efficiently in cost-effective way. Presently, there are no commercially-available, efficient, and reliable TECs on the market that can cool large heat loads (i.e. kilowatts) from the large surface area (~m2) such as from on-detector electronics of large spectrometers. Nanohomics Inc., in consultation with Professor Mona Zebarjadi from University of Virginia, NovaCentrix and Dr. Drew Wiesenberger from Jefferson lab detector team, proposes to design and fabricate a conformal, large area (~m2) TECs which are manufactured using cost-effective R2R process and employ best performed Bi2Te3-based thermoelectric materials. In Phase I effort, the team will fabricate a functional 3” x 8” conformal TECs, and design and simulate large area assembly structure of 1m2 TEC containing multiple 3” x 8” TECs. The fabrication of such 1m2 TEC and integration with on-detector electronics for cooling will be accomplished in Phase II. These TECs can cool kilowatts of heat per meter square produced from on-detector electronics of large spectrometers efficiently with coefficient of performance greater than 1.0 and maintain their temperature at 20 – 25⁰C more reliably and consistently compared to others competitive cooling systems such as vacuum compressors and Rankine coolers. The Nanohmics’ fabricated TECs will also benefits from a compact size, light-weight, no working fluids, and reliability that are unapproachable with conventional compressor based cooling systems. Furthermore, price per square foot of these TECs will be on the order of ~$100, a significant reduction in the costs of present commercial modules even of low-end TE modules (~$232/sqft., source: Alibaba). This level of cost reduction is possible because ceramic plates (~1/3 of the unit cost) are eliminated and the laborious pick-n-place manufacturing process is replaced by an in situ, membrane-supported structure that can be produced roll-to-roll manufacturing process. When considering all the stated advantages, the proposed technology becomes cost-competitive compared to all other alternatives and immediately impact both cooling/heating (such as aerospace and defense, electronics, automotive, and biomedical cooling) as well as waste heat recovery markets (such as automotive and industrial waste heat).