Thermoelectric cooling technology applied in the field of electronic devices: Updated review on the parametric investigations and model developments

In recent years, thermoelectric cooling technology (TECT) has emerged as one of high efficiency and low energy consumption methodologies for electronic cooling. This paper presented a comprehensive survey of TECT to show a complete foundation on the thermoelectric applications in electronic cooling. Thermoelectric physical parameters, consisting of Seebeck coefficient S, thermal conductivity K, and electric resistance R, are highly dependent on temperatures of thermoelectric heating and cooling sides and they have been simplified into constants when the thermoelectric cooling model was theoretically established. Furthermore, two systematical solution methodologies were proposed, i.e., the thermal resistance network and the effectiveness-number of transfer units, to describe the coefficient of performance (COP). Effects of cooling load, air temperature and all thermal conductances in heating side on the cooling performance have been attempted, regarding surface temperature of electronic devices and COP as evaluation indexes. Our analysis reveals that thermal control for electronics of high heat flux could be achieved by enhancing heat transfer in the hot side of thermoelectric system and increasing the numbers of thermoelectric coolers. Overall, governing parameters and modeling for practical applications have been presented, and the cooling potential of thermoelectric technology for electronic devices could be enhanced further.