Fabrication of a point-contact-type Peltier device

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A novel thermoelectric cooling/heating device was proposed and fabricated as an alternative to the conventional pi-type device. The structure includes a sharp tip that is positioned between p-and n-type Bi2Te3 bulks, and the tip can easily be exchanged when different targets are cooled or heated. The tip sizes are 50.100μm when a copper tip is used and 100 nm when a cantilever is used. The tip temperature reached-47.1℃during cooling and 335.0℃during heating. The thermal time constant of the device was as small as 1sec. Our device is useful not only for cooling/heating micro-objects but also for heat manipulation of micro-organisms.