TABLE OF CONTENTS In the single chapter in this part, the author, who works in industry in the United States, describes how precise temperature control of an electronic device can be accomplished by mounting it on a thermoelectric module (TEM). Depending on the direction of the current flowing through a TEM, heat is released or absorbed at the interface between it and the electronic device by virtue of the Peltier effect. Because the rate of heat released or absorbed by the Peltier effect is proportional to the magnitude of the current, TEMs are effective temperature controllers of devices such as lasers and optical routers.
Marc Hodes
Bell Laboratories
Lucent Technologies
Murray Hill, New Jersey
Depending on the direction of the current flowing through a thermoelectric module (TEM), heat is absorbed or released at the interface between it and an electronic device mounted on it by virtue of the Peltier effect. Moreover, the rate of heat absorbed or released by the Peltier effect is directly proportional to the magnitude of the current. Hence, TEMs are well suited to precision temperature control of electronic devices. Here the equations governing the operation of a TEM are presented and used to calculate parameters relevant to precision temperature control of an optical router.
Thermal energy may be reversibly converted to electrical energy and vice versa in electrically conducting materials...
