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It’s weird. There is no mention of Hagelstein’s invention of a solid state thermal diode.

https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/patent/US-7569763-B2

Solid state energy converter
Patent US-7569763-B2
Inventor
KUCHEROV YAN R (US)

HAGELSTEIN PETER L (US)

Assignee
MICROPOWER GLOBAL LTD (VG)

Dates
Grant
2009/08/04

Priority
1999/03/11

This web page summarizes information in PubChem about patent US-7569763-B2. This includes chemicals mentioned, as reported by PubChem contributors, as well as other content, such as title, abstract, and International Patent Classification (IPC) codes. To read more about how this page was constructed, please visit the PubChem patents help page.

PubChem
1Abstract HelpNew Window
A solid-state energy converter with a semiconductor or semiconductor-metal implementation is provided for conversion of thermal energy to electric energy, or electric energy to refrigeration. In n-type heat-to-electricity embodiments, a highly doped n* emitter region made of a metal or semiconductor injects carriers into an n-type gap region. A p-type layer is positioned between the emitter region and gap region, allowing for discontinuity of corresponding Fermi-levels and forming a potential barrier to sort electrons by energy. Additional p-type layers can optionally be formed on the collector side of the converter. One type of these layers with higher carrier concentration (p*) serves as a blocking layer at the cold side of the converter, and another layer (p**) with carrier concentration close to the gap reduces a thermoelectric back flow component. Ohmic contacts on both sides of the device close the electrical circuit through an external load to convert heat to electricity. In the case of a refrigerator, the external load is substituted by an external power supply.

Google Patents
2Full Text HelpNew Window
USPTO
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&s1=7569763.PN.