Download all files (4.55 MB)

Collection

Citation

Description:

The growing demand for autonomous, sustainable, and delocalized power sources for low-power-consuming electronic devices is driving a significant research effort on energy harvesting technologies. Among these, micro-thermoelectric generators (µTEGs) emerge as an appealing solution because of the abundance of residual latent heat sources. This paper proposes an approach to combine high-performance thermoelectric oxides with Si-based µTEGs, leveraging the miniaturization and high-density integration of CMOS-like technologies. The approach is applied to the integration of niobium doped strontium titanate (Nb:STO) thin films on Si-based planar µTEG structures. The Nb:STO-based µTEG achieves a specific power density Γ = 0.36 nW·cm−2 ·K−2 under controlled temperature gradients, which is below state-of-the-art performance probably due to lower electrical conductivity from polycrystalline growth. When the chips were tested under realistic operating conditions – placed on a hot surface at 175 °C – a maximum power output of p = 0.07 nW was obtained. Nonetheless, by implementing a technological solution for thermal dissipation, the temperature gradient across the thermoelectric material improved by a factor of 110, resulting in a significantly higher extracted power of p = 7.75 nW.

Rights:

• Creative Commons BY Attribution 4.0 International
  

Keyword: Thermoelectric, micro-thermoelectric generator, thin-films, SrTiO₃, IoT

Date published: 2026-05-08

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Journal:

• Science and Technology of Advanced Materials (ISSN: 14686996) vol. 27 2665920

Funding:

Manuscript type: Author's version (Accepted manuscript)

MDR DOI: https://doi.org/10.48505/nims.6308

First published URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/14686996.2026.2665920

Related item:

Other identifier(s):

Contact agent:

Updated at: 2026-05-21 11:58:16 +0900

Published on MDR: 2026-05-21 14:27:34 +0900