Origami Heat Radiation Fin for Stretchable Thermoelectric Generator

We proposed a thermoelectric generator (TEG) with origami-like folded structure called “origami-fin” in order to achieve both high heat radiation performance and high stretchability. Our origami-fin produces the stretchability of the TEG by local bending of non-stretchable material and works as a heat radiator because of its large surface area compared with a not folded flat structure. We evaluated a heat radiation performance of the origami-fin, and stability of the performance by stretching deformation. The results show that the origami-fin works as a heat radiator to enhance the output of the TEG, and has high stretchability with slight output reduction.