SEOUL, August 25 (AJP) - Samsung Electronics said Sunday that a joint project with Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory has been recognized among the world’s top 100 innovations at this year’s R&D 100 Awards, an annual competition that highlights advances in science and engineering.
The joint research centers on “next-generation Peltier cooling technology,” a method that uses electricity rather than chemical refrigerants to regulate temperature.
The team, comprising Samsung Research’s Life Solution group and Johns Hopkins scientists, developed what it described as the world’s first high-performance thin-film Peltier semiconductor device, demonstrating its use in a prototype refrigerator.
By introducing a thin-film semiconductor deposition process, the researchers increased cooling efficiency by roughly 75 percent compared with conventional systems, while reducing both size and weight, according to R&D World Magazine, which organizes the awards. The findings were published in May in the journal Nature Communications.
Peltier cooling works by applying an electric current to a semiconductor, which causes one side of the device to heat and the other to cool. Because the process avoids the use of chemical refrigerants, it is seen as an environmentally friendlier alternative to vapor compression technology, the dominant method in refrigerators and air conditioners today.
The thin-film approach, Samsung said, could enable more precise and rapid temperature control across a wide range of industries, from consumer electronics and medical devices to automotive systems and data centers.
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