Peltier cooling stage utilizing a superconductor-semiconductor junction

Abstract From the Canadian patent

A practical cryogenic Peltier cooler (22) is devised by replacing one of the semiconducting elements in a conventional Peltier cooler with an element comprised of bulk, or thin film superconducting material. In the preferred embodiment, a rare-earth, a barium copper oxide superconductor (78) of the form Ybacu3Ox is utilized. The superconducting elements (78) are placed in an alternating series with semiconducting elements (72) comprised of bismuth telluride of the form Bi2Te3 (n-type). Performance may be improved in an alternative embodiment by utilizing instead a bismuth antimony semiconductor of the form Bi85Sb15 (n-type). As a result, cryogenic Peltier coolers can be devised with useful …