The present invention provides thermoelectric conversion elements and thermoelectric conversion modules which are possible to effectively use oxide materials having high Seebeck coefficient, and excellently improve their outputs. The present invention provides thermoelectric conversion elements which comprise at least a charge transport layer, thermoelectric conversion material layers and electrodes, wherein the charge transport layer comprises a graphite treated to dope charge-donating materials so that the graphite has an n-type semiconductor property, or a graphite treated to dope charge-accepting materials so that the graphite has a p-type semiconductor property, and provides thermoelectric conversion modules using the thermoelectric conversion elements.

A thermoelectric conversion material contains a matrix composed of a semiconductor and nanoparticles disposed in the matrix, and the nanoparticles have a lattice constant distribution Δd/d of 0.0055 or more.

A semiconductor device includes a substrate; a first thermoelectric conduction leg, disposed on the substrate, and doped with a first type of dopant; a second thermoelectric conduction leg, disposed on the substrate, and doped with a second type of dopant, wherein the first and second thermoelectric conduction legs are spatially spaced from each other but disposed along a common row on the substrate; and a first intermediate thermoelectric conduction structure, disposed on a first end of the second thermoelectric conduction leg, and doped with the first type of dopant.

Thermoelectric module (200, 300) comprising: a substrate (201); a first material (205) of a first doping type forming a first leg extending on a surface of the substrate (201), the first leg comprising a first end oriented towards a first region of the surface and a second, opposite end oriented towards a second region of the surface; and a second material (203) of a second doping type forming a second leg extending on the surface of the substrate (201), the second leg comprising a first end oriented towards the first region of the surface and a second, opposite end oriented towards the second region of the surface, such that the first and second legs are substantially parallel to each other, wherein the first end of the first leg is in electrical connection with the first end of the second leg, and wherein the first and second doping types have opposite polarity, such that when a heat flux (209) is applied between the first region and the second region of the surface, a potential difference arises between the second end of the first leg and the second end of the second leg, and wherein the substrate (201), the first material (205), and the second material (203) are substantially transparent to visible light.

An apparatus for solid state energy harvesting includes a complex oxide based pyrochlores having a chemical formula of A2 B2 O7 configured to directly convert heat into electricity and operate and function at a higher temperature without oxidizing in air. The complex oxide based pyrochlores are mixed with cation at B-site.

The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing a thermoelectric half-cell which utilises the metallization for obtaining both the electric and thermal contact required to form a functional thermoelectric cell.

According to one embodiment, a power generation element includes a first conductive region including a first surface, a plurality of second conductive regions, and a plurality of insulating structure regions. The second conductive regions are arranged along the first surface. A gap is provided between the second conductive regions and the first surface. One of the structure regions is provided between one of the second conductive regions and the first surface. An other one of the structure regions is provided between an other one of the second conductive regions and the first surface.

A tactile representation device is provided. The tactile representation device includes a substrate and a semiconductor temperature control assembly disposed on the substrate. The substrate includes a plurality of deformable regions and a plurality of node regions that are alternately disposed in a first direction, wherein the deformable regions are deformable but the node regions are not deformable. The semiconductor temperature control assembly includes a plurality of semiconductor temperature control units. Each of the semiconductor temperature control units includes a hot terminal electrode, a P-side electrode, an N-side electrode, a P-type semiconductor, and an N-type semiconductor. Each of the hot terminal electrodes is disposed in each of the deformable regions, and each of the P-side electrodes and each of the N-side electrodes are disposed in each of the node regions.

Provided is a silicide-based alloy material with which environmental load can be reduced and high thermoelectric conversion performance can be obtained.

Provided is a silicide-based alloy material including silicon and ruthenium as main components, in which when the contents of silicon and ruthenium are denoted by Si and Ru, respectively, the atomic ratio of the devices constituting the alloy material satisfies the following:

45 atm %≤Si/(Ru+Si)≤70 atm %

30 atm %≤Ru/(Ru+Si)≤55 atm %.

The invention relates to thermoelectric generators, and more particularly to thermoelectric generators functioning on the thermoelectric properties of graded-gap structures, i.e. the properties of graded-gap semiconductors with alternating dopants and of heterojunctions therebetween, as well as on the properties of intrinsic semiconductor materials, and can be used, inter alia, for powering domestic electric appliances and charging power-supply elements of portable electronic devices.

The present semiconductor thermoelectric generator comprises a semiconductor assembly configured to be capable of extracting heat from the surrounding environment, said semiconductor assembly containing at least one pair of interconnected graded-gap semiconductors, wherein a wide-gap side of at least one graded-gap semiconductor is connected to a narrow-gap side of at least one other graded-gap semiconductor. The junction between the graded-gap semiconductors is configured using an intrinsic semiconductor material and the graded-gap semiconductors are configured using alternating dopants, wherein the wide-gap sides of pairwise-connected graded-gap semiconductors are doped with an acceptor impurity.

The technical result of the claimed invention consists in improving the efficiency, power and output of a thermoelectric generator and expanding the functionality thereof.