高温超伝導体を用いた新しい低温域用ペルチェ冷凍素子

抄録

A possibility of the new type Peltier refrigerator using a high-T_c superconductor as passive thermo-element has been investigated near the liquid nitrogen temperature. In a normal type Peltier refrigerator, a pair of the n-type semiconductor and the p-type one are usually used. However, at low temperatures no effective p-type material has been found out, though the Bi-Sb alloy is well known to be the promising candidate for the n-type material. Therefore, in this paper we have tried to use the high-T_c superconductor instead of the p-type material. With the Peltier refrigerator composed of the n-type Bi₈₈Sb₁₂ semiconductor and the Bi-2223 high-T_c superconductor, a cooling has been demonstrated and a maximum temperature difference of 6.6K has been obtained when the temperature of the hot junction is 78K. Besides the improvement in the performance of the Peltier refrigerator has been achieved by reducing the cross section of the superconductor.