Interface phenomena play a vital role in thermoelectric (TE) microrefrigera
tors. The present study employs a phenomenological model to examine the beh
avior of TE refrigerators as a function of thermal and electrical contact r
esistance, boundary Seebeck coefficient, and heat sink conductance. We modi
fy the conventional definition of the figure of merit to capture the interf
ace effects. A finite temperature drop across the interface between a metal
electrode and a thermoelement is found to strongly influence the boundary
Seebeck effect. Interface engineering can potentially improve the overall p
erformance of TE microrefrigerators. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics
. [S0021-8979(00)08019-1].