Opto-thermionic refrigeration in semiconductor heterostructures.
Combining the ideas of laser cooling and thermionic cooling, we have proposed an opto-thermionic cooling process, and investigated its cooling effect caused by the light emission from a quantum well embedded into a semiconductor pn junction. For a GaAs/AlGaAs opto-thermionic refrigerator in which the Auger recombination is the major nonradiative process, cooling can be achieved in a finite range of bias voltage. Using the measured values of the Auger coefficient, our calculated cooling rate is at least several watts/cm(2).
Mal'shukov
A G
AG
Institute of Spectroscopy, Russian Academy of Science, 142092 Troitsk, Moscow oblast, Russia.
Chao
K A
KA