A stacked and miniaturized radioisotope thermoelectric generator by screen printing

A radioisotope thermoelectric generator based on (Bi, Sb)2(Te, Se)3 thermoelectric material was designed as a miniature long-life power supply for low-power devices. In the finite element method simulation, the maximum hot-side temperature is approximately 400 K, and the voltage could reach 0.3 V for one single-layer module at 0.5 W heat source. Thermocouples films were prepared by screen printing. And one single-layer module, which was composed of five thermocouples, produces a power of 12 nW at 7.0 mV in the test. It is predicted that 100-layer modules would generate 2.31 mW at 2.34 V, and the maximum power density and maximum conversion efficiency are 0.51 mW cm−3 and 0.46%, respectively.