Innovative Design of Bismuth-Telluride-Based Thermoelectric Transistors

Conventional thermoelectric generators, predominantly based on the π-type structure, are severely limited in their applications due to the relatively low conversion efficiency. In response to the challenge, in this work, a Bi₂Te₃-based thermoelectric transistor driven by laser illumination is demonstrated. Under laser illumination, a temperature difference of 46.7 °C is produced between the two ends of the transistor structure. Further, the hole concentrations in each region redistribute and the built-in voltages decrease due to the temperature difference, leading to the formation of the transistor circuit. Additionally, the operation condition of the thermoelectric transistor is presented. The calculation results demonstrate that the maximum output power of such a designed thermoelectric transistor is 0.7093 μW.