Flexible thermoelectric system based on inorganic bulk materials

Abstract

This paper reports the flexible thermoelectric system based on inorganic bulk materials. Due to its structural design, while the bulk inorganic thermoelectric materials were used, it shows enough flexibility to be adopted on irregular surface such as human skin. To measure the thermoelectric performance, the refrigeration and power harvesting were conducted on human skin. It successfully refrigerate the human skin about 3.3 K power with the portable battery. And the 78-μW power output was achieved with 7.2-mV voltage on human skin.