Tiny silicon nanowire generator harnesses energy from heat produced in electronic circuits

Electronic devices often develop ‘hot spots’ that can become detrimental to performance. Much research has focused on developing methods to cool the system, or, even better, convert the excess heat to electricity by exploiting the thermoelectric effect — where a thermal gradient induces the movement of charge carriers. However, previous attempts at building chip-level generators have failed because the incorporated materials were not compatible with the technology used for constructing integrated circuits, such as complementary metal oxide semiconductors (CMOS).

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