A comparison of thin film microrefrigerators based on Si/SiGe superlattice and bulk SiGe

Most of the conventional thermal management techniques can be used to cool the whole chip. Since thermal design requirements are mostly driven by the peak temperatures, reducing or eliminating hot spots could alleviate the design requirements for the whole package. Monolithic solid-state microcoolers offer an attractive way to eliminate hot spots. In this paper, we review theoretical and experimental cooling performance of silicon-based microrefrigerators on a chip. Both Si/SiGe superlattice and also bulk SiGe thin film devices have been fabricated and characterized. Direct measurement of the cooling along with material characterization allows us to extract the key factors limiting the performance of these microrefrigerators. Although Si/SiGe superlattice has larger thermoelectric power factor, the maximum cooling of thin film refrigerators based on SiGe alloys are comparable to that of superlattices. This is due to the fact that the superlattice thermal conductivity is larger than bulk SiGe alloy by about 30%. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.