Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: 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.
DOI: 10.48505/nims.6308
Institution: Institut de Microelectrònica de Barcelona
Language: xx
Subfield: Materials Chemistry
Field: Materials Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Awards: G1039312466, G1087826915, G1175115578, G1911071079, G2038104832, G2064873908, G2262748287, G24120701, G2601397997, G2640929160, G288263039, G294895050, G3005324705, G300979063, G3461529875, G3480869486, G3546882995, G3565415888, G3681454997, G3961196547, G4042783231, G425668148, G4442677895, G4526231891, G5080475149, G5195188938, G5837043403, G5852091828, G586857820, Energy HarveStorers for Powering the Internet of Things, G6218905885, G7084143925, G7127239378, G7169023097, G7235596654, G7340230215, G787121397, G8186266869, G8227242120, G8888022036
OpenAlex ID: W7161943980