Thermoelastic stress analysis of multilayered films in a micro-thermoelectric cooling device

This paper presents an analytical solution for the thermoelastic stress in a typical in-plane’s thin-film micro-thermoelectric cooling device under different operating conditions. The distributions of the permissible temperature fields in multilayered thin-films are analytically obtained, and the characteristics, including maximum temperature difference and maximum refrigerating output of the thermoelectric device, are discussed for two operating conditions. Analytical expressions of the thermoelastic stresses in the layered thermoelectric thin-films induced by the temperature difference are formulated based on the theory of multilayer system. The results demonstrate that, the geometric dimension is a significant factor which remarkably affects the thermoelastic stresses. The stress distributions in layers of semiconductor thermoelements, insulating and supporting membrane show distinctly different features. The present work may profitably guide the optimization design of high-efficiency micro-thermoelectric cooling devices.