15-Fold increase in solar thermoelectric generator performance through femtosecond-laser spectral engineering and thermal management

Tianshu Xu; Ran Wei; Subhash C. Singh; Chunlei Guo

doi:10.1038/s41377-025-01916-9

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15-Fold increase in solar thermoelectric generator performance through femtosecond-laser spectral engineering and thermal management

Original Articles

- 15-Fold increase in solar thermoelectric generator performance through femtosecond-laser spectral engineering and thermal management
- Light: Science & Applications Vol. 14, Issue 10, Pages: 2891-2903(2025)
- Affiliations：
  
  The Institute of Optics, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627, USA
- Author bio：
  
  Subhash C. Singh (ssingh49@ur.rochester.edu)
  Chunlei Guo (guo@optics.rochester.edu)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1038/s41377-025-01916-9
  CLC：
- Received：17 November 2024，
  
  Revised：2025-05-06，
  
  Accepted：04 June 2025，
  
  Published Online：12 August 2025，
  
  Published：31 October 2025
- Accepted：
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Xu, T. S. et al. 15-Fold increase in solar thermoelectric generator performance through femtosecond-laser spectral engineering and thermal management. Light: Science & Applications, 14, 2891-2903 (2025).
DOI：

Xu, T. S. et al. 15-Fold increase in solar thermoelectric generator performance through femtosecond-laser spectral engineering and thermal management. Light: Science & Applications, 14, 2891-2903 (2025). DOI： 10.1038/s41377-025-01916-9.

摘要

Abstract

Solar thermoelectric generators (STEGs) have recently gained increasing attention. However

their widespread adoption has been limited due to the lack of high-efficiency thermoelectric materials and compact heat sinks for effective heat dissipation. To address these issues

we develop a spectral engineering and thermal management strategy that significantly increases STEG power generation by 15 times with only a 25% increase in weight. At the hot side

we transform a regular tungsten (W) to a selective solar absorber (W-SSA) through a femtosecond (fs)-laser processing technique

which enhances the solar absorption while minimizing the IR emissivity

obtaining >80% absorption efficiency at elevated temperatures. We also design a greenhouse chamber for W-SSA and achieved >40% reduction in convective heat loss. At the cold side

we apply the fs laser processing to transform a regular aluminum (Al) to a super-high-capacity micro-structured heat dissipator (μ-dissipator)

which improves the cold-side heat dissipation through both radiation and convection

achieving twice the cooling performance of a regular Al heat dissipator. These spectral engineering and thermal management increase the temperature difference across the STEG

resulting in a substantial increase in output power. The high-efficiency STEG can find a wide range of applications

such as wireless sensor networks

wearable electronics

and medical sensors.

关键词

Keywords

references

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