They are really unpractical at the moment, but so were peltiers and solar cells when they first started out. Now those technologies are robust, effective, and

They are really unpractical at the moment, but so were peltiers and solar cells when they first started out. Now those technologies are robust, effective, and practical. With enough research, perhaps these will also be practical. I think a MEMS implementation with chip scale devices might fit the bill if suitable materials can be discovered. Since these are basically capacitors, If we say Dt is 1c and the single cycle density is low, we might be able to use MEMS to get a MHz cycle rate and layer them 100 thick like NAND. Then you’ve got an extremely high thermal flow (millions of cycles per second) and 100c Delta—T in a device that can be produced at chip-scale. Peltier devices can’t unlock this process, since their base efficiency is so dismal that you would just be creating a heating element. I don’t know if any of this is possible with -this- device, but it is meant to be an example of how modern technologies can create unexpected outcomes from humble processes, when the efficiency of the granular process is high enough. If this could leverage MEMS in a similar way to how massive parallelism revolutionised power MOSFETs, it would be a fantastic tool for humanity.