Performance characteristic of energy selective electron (ESE) refrigerator with filter heat conduction

Abstract

The cooling load and coefficient of performance (COP) characteristic of an energy selective electron (ESE) refrigerator with filter heat conduction operating in the maximum cooling load regime and the intermediate regime (i.e. between maximum cooling load operation and reversible operation) are analyzed in this paper. In the analyses, the analytical formulae for cooling load and COP of the ESE refrigerator are derived for the two operation regimes, respectively. The performance characteristics are obtained by numerical calculations. The influence of the resonance widths on the performance of the ESE refrigerator in the intermediate regime is discussed. It is shown that, in the maximum cooling load operation regime, when the filter heat transfer is taken into account, the cooling load versus COP characteristic change from monotonic curves (without filter heat conduction) to parabolic-like ones (with filter heat conduction); while in the intermediate regime, the cooling load versus COP characteristic are always loop-shaped ones and the heat conduction of the filter does not change the shape of the characteristic curves. The cooling load is a parabolic-like function of resonance width while the COP is a monotonic one of resonance width. With the increase in thermal conductivity, the COP decreases in both operation regimes. The results obtained herein have theoretical significance for the understanding of thermodynamic performance of the micro-nano devices.