Transforming heat to electricity with semiconductors?

[Lasha]

Is it real? how does it work?

 

[mfb]

You always need a heat difference - a warm area and a cold area. Photovoltaic cells do that in an indirect way (via light from the hot sun). Thermoelectric generators are a direct way to generate electricity from heat differences, but they don't need semiconductors.

 

[jtbell]

You always need a heat difference - a warm area and a cold area.

According to precise usage in English-language textbooks, "heat" = "energy transferred because of a difference in temperature between two objects." Therefore in the OP's statement, "heat" is appropriate. "Heat difference" doesn't make sense here.

(However, even many physicists get sloppy with this terminology sometimes. )

 

[Lasha]

"More recent devices use semiconductor p–n junctions made from bismuth telluride (Bi2Te3), lead telluride (PbTe)"
Wait you said that they don't need semi-conductors right?Then what's this?

 

[mfb]

"More recent devices use semiconductor p–n junctions made from bismuth telluride (Bi2Te3), lead telluride (PbTe)"
Wait you said that they don't need semi-conductors right?Then what's this?

You can use them, you do not have to. That is an important difference.

@jtbell: Oh, sorry. In German, you can describe both with "Wärme", I didn't know that heat is energy transfer only in English.

 

[Lasha]

But what makes the electrons move from one side to another? I get that electrons get more active but what makes them move in one direction?

 

[mfb]

How much do you know about quantum mechanics and thermodynamics? Overview at Wikipedia

 

[russ_watters]

According to precise usage in English-language textbooks, "heat" = "energy transferred because of a difference in temperature between two objects." Therefore in the OP's statement, "heat" is appropriate. "Heat difference" doesn't make sense here.

(However, even many physicists get sloppy with this terminology sometimes. )

And we engineers ignore the difference completely, seeing it as trivial.

 

[Lasha]

Well, I know the very basics of thermodynamics and I can understand how wave functions work.

 

[ModusPwnd]

In German, you can describe both with "Wärme", I didn't know that heat is energy transfer only in English.

Not in colloquial English, but in physics as jargon it has that specific meaning.