TEC is a semiconductor refrigerator.
Semiconductor refrigerators are made by utilizing the Peltier effect of semiconductor materials. The so-called Peltier effect refers to the phenomenon that when a DC current passes through a galvanic couple composed of two semiconductor materials, one end absorbs heat and the other end releases heat. Heavily doped N-type and P-type bismuth telluride are mainly used as semiconductor materials for TEC. The bismuth telluride elements are electrically connected in series and generate heat in parallel.
Uses:
TEC has a wide range of uses. The most typical applications are laser temperature control and PCR temperature control. As we all know, lasers are very sensitive to temperature, so the requirements for TEC are very high.
Some even require the TEC and laser to be packaged in TO at the same time, which requires the TEC to be very small. There are not many companies that can meet this requirement. Germany's Micropelt Company is a representative. It adopts the most advanced thin film technology and uses MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) for processing, resulting in a very small TEC.
Reference for the above content? Baidu Encyclopedia—TEC