Investigations of cooling efficiencies in solid-state electrocaloric device

Abstract

Electrocaloric working elements are modeled by 2-D geometry and the thermodynamic efficiencies of Carnot, Ericsson and Brayton cycles were investigated in a solid-state electrocaloric cooling device. Using a comprehensive model for coupled thermal, electrical interactions in ferroelectric PMN-0.3PT single crystals, we demonstrated high Carnot efficiencies followed by Ericsson and Brayton cycles respectively. We also developed a physical model based on cascade systems to improve the device efficiency of Ericsson.