Samsung Co-Develops Next-Generation Peltier Cooling Technology

Samsung has teamed up with Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) for the development of a next-gen Peltier cooling technology. They recently published a joint research paper titled “Nano-Engineered Thin-Film Thermoelectric Materials Enable Practical Solid-State Refrigeration.” The research paper is available in the science journal Nature Communications.

Next-gen Peltier cooling tech eliminates the need for refrigerants

In a Newsroom post, Samsung said that it has created the paper through a collaborative project between researchers from Samsung Research’s Life Solution Team and Dr. Rama Venkatasubramanian’s thermoelectrics research team within the physics, electronic materials and devices research program at APL.

So, what is Peltier cooling technology? It applies an electric current to a semiconductor, which causes one side to get cold and the other side to get hot. Unlike traditional fridges, this method eliminates the need for refrigerants. As a result, it is becoming popular as a next-generation alternative solution to refrigerants.

The research team has successfully developed and presented a high-performance Peltier refrigerator. For this, they used a thin-film Peltier semiconductor fabricated through cutting-edge nano-engineering technology. In comparison with the traditional vapor compression methods, Peltier cooling technology makes it possible to achieve quick and accurate temperature control. It will come in handy in several industrial fields, including home appliances, semiconductors, medical devices, automotive electronics, and data centers.

However, it’s important for the team to achieve superior cooling efficiency before bringing high-performance Peltier cooling devices to the market. The good news is that Samsung and the APL research team have already achieved this by improving efficiency by about 75%. Samsung says the use of new thin-film semiconductor materials, along with miniaturization and lightweight design, played a big role in obtaining superior cooling efficiency.

The best thing about the Peltier device is that it uses far fewer materials, about 1/1,000 of what was needed before. This makes it suitable for mass production by simplifying the production steps.