A self-regenerating electrocaloric cooler.

In this paper, we report a self-regenerating solid-state electrocaloric cooler that achieves a high ratio between the temperature span of the device and the electric-field-induced temperature change of the electrocaloric (EC) elements. The cooler consists of two layers of alternating rows of EC multilayer capacitors (MLCs) and insulating material. The layers move laterally relative to one another as the polarizing electric field switches synchronously. A demonstration device based on COTS BaTiO3 MLCs is fabricated and tested. The system achieves a temperature span of ~2.5 K with an applied field of 300 kV/cm. This is approximately five times the adiabatic temperature change of the MLCs.