A novel self-powering ultrathin TEG device based on micro/nano emitter for radiative cooling

This paper demonstrated a novel energy utilization that thermoelectric generation (TEG) device can achieve self-powering by radiative cooling (RC) continuously. An ultrathin TEG with a multilayer thermal emitter was fabricated to convert the heat from the environment into electricity directly by using radiative cooling. The TEG device was consisted of more than 46,000 P-N modules in series, and each two TE modules were connected by air bridge. Thermal emitter had 80.8% emissivity in the atmospheric window (8-13 mu m). Besides, maximum temperature drop of 4 K was achieved. The output voltage of the TEG-RC reached up to 0.5 mV, and the TEG-RC exhibited a continuous average 0.18 mV output for 24 h. Extreme temperature gradients were surprisingly formed in cross section of 1.5 mu m thick for micro/nano film materials.