by Marina KHALIZEVA, journalist

Until recently the Moscow RMT (Russian Materials and Technologies) company specialized in production of thermoelectric micromodules designed for cooling, local heat elimination and maintenance of an efficient work regime of lasers, light guides, photoreceivers, elements of integral charts and biomedical instruments created in 1994 by staff members of the RAS Lebedev Physical Institute (FIAN), located in the territory of its Innovation Center. At present the company is developing a high-tech business in Varshavskoye Highway (Moscow), where it held a ceremonial opening of its new production site in May 2011.

Design of the Peltier thermoelectric module.

Apart from RMT, the project with a total budget of 797 mln rubles involves two major partners, namely, the Rusnano state corporation and the C-Group Ventures closed joint-stock investment fund of venture investments, set up with the participation of OAO Russian Venture Company (Moscow). This is one of a few successful examples of commercialization of national scientific projects and transfer of promising technologies to the industrial sector.

The company business staffed mainly with the former members of FIAN was born against the background of a dramatic situation, which started up in science in the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union and included: underfinancing, closing of expensive experiments on large-scale facilities, and outflow of talented scientists to other spheres of activities. The company was headed by Gennady Gromov, Cand. Sc. (Phys. & Math.), the former head of the FIAN semiconductor and laser technologies laboratory. But contrary to his colleagues, after leaving the institute, he started business not far from science, but close to it.

Making use of his old connections, he gained access to a small American company on Long Island (state of New York) in 1991, which sold semiconductor materials, and, together with his colleagues, established the RAMET (Russian-American Materials for Electronic Technology) joint enterprise. But the work according to the principle "purchase of products and their sales to foreign partners" did not satisfy young ambitious people. Thus, in 1994 the RMT company was set up, which determined the sphere of its activities, i.e. development of thermoelectric modules, components and instruments based on them. In 1998, the company obtained accreditation under the FIAN Innovation Center, which undoubtedly helped develop its business. The company's activities corresponded to the scientific work of the legendary team, its representatives were awarded prizes at the FIAN open contests, and their nontrivial developments were discussed at the Academic Council. Academician Vitaly Ginzburg (1916-2009), Nobel Prizewinner of 2003 and one of the most notable members of FIAN also showed interest in them.

While in 2002 the small private company numbered 20 workers (four of them candidates of sciences and eight engineers experienced in semiconductor engineering), today it employs 110 specialists and not only in Moscow, but also on the supplementary production site in Nizhni Novgorod. At present RMT produces 300,000 modules per year or 2 percent of their world output. It enabled the company to enter the 10 top world producers of thermal elements. So, what is the company's secret?

It should be noted that the operating principle of modules is not new, it is based on the effect discovered in 1834 by the French scientist Jean Peltier, whose hobby was physics (earlier he worked as a watchmaker at a famous company of his compatriot and outstanding master Abraham-Lois Breguet, but in 1815 due to the means he inherited, he got an opportunity to devote himself to science). Once, when he let electric current pass through a bismuth band with copper conductors connected to it, Peltier revealed that one connection

(bismuth-copper) was heating up, while the other got cold at the same time. But he could not explain the nature of the discovered phenomenon at that time.

Later on the famous Russian physicist Emil Lents, member of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences from 1828 cleared up the matter. When conducting experiments with a water drop, placed on a joint of two conductors, bismuth and antimony, he proved that the Peltier effect was an independent physical phenomenon, the gist of which lies in the fact that passing of direct current through a contact of two conductors in one direction, causes release of heat and its absorption--in another direction. Besides, it is most pronounced in case of connection of semiconductors of different types. Depending on the direction of electric current passing through the so-called p-n- and n-p-pas-sages* owing to interaction of charges represented by electrons (n) and holes (p), heat is either absorbed or released. Integration of a great number of semiconductor pairs of the p- and n-types allowed creation of cooling elements of high capacity.

The pioneer in the development of thermoelectric energy transformation in the Soviet Union was an outstanding physicist, founder and director of the Physico-Technical Institute in Leningrad, Academician from 1920, Abram Ioffe. His works of the 1930s, devoted to the conduction mechanism on the metal-semiconductor boundary and the theory of thermoelectric generators, laid the foundation for new directions in the semiconductor physics developed successfully by his followers in the ensuing years. In the mid-1950s, the "Ioffe school" synthesized a number of alloys, providing an opportunity for a large-scale production of thermoelectric cooling devices. However, their wide use started only in late 20th and early 21st centuries, which was connected with miniaturization of processes in radio-electronics.

It seems as if Peltier modules perform the same functions as conventional compression or absorption units of refrigerators based on cooling agents. But, like solid-state thermal pumps, they have a number of advantages, i.e. they have no movable and wearing components, perform noiseless operations in any spatial position, allow smooth and exact regulation of cooling efficiency and temperature conditions, are resistant to mechanical action and finally have small sizes and weight. Such modules are especially in demand among developers of different electronic equipment. Nanotechnologies providing an apparent increase in thermoeffect made their contribution to popularity of these modules. Thanks to them the RMT company took one of the leading positions in the world market.

The company found means to enhance the quality factor of thermoelectric cooling devices by means of nanostructurization, i.e. development of materials with the specified spatial energy structure and distinctive sizes within a nanometer range. The RMT specialists developed a manufacturing technology of high-per-for-

*P-n-passage (n-negative, electron; p--positive, hole) or electron-hole passage is a region of space at the junction of two semiconductors of the p- and n-types, in which transition from one type of conductivity to another takes place. It is a base of many semiconductor instruments.-- Ed.

mance "refrigerators" made from the widespread semiconductor bismuth telluride (Bi₂Te₃), produced by the so-called zone melting or hot extrusion*. In other words, the chemical compound is grown and reduced to submicron sizes, then the material is sintered and cut to the smallest columns of the n- and p-type of conductivity. Positioned in a staggered order and successively connected, they form an efficient "filling" for a modern thermoelectric cooler, which creates a temperature difference between upper and lower radiators. To increase this parameter, modules are switched like a cascade, i.e. are placed one on the other in several "floors".

RMT produces one- and multi-cascade (up to six) highly reliable cooling units with a temperature difference up to 140 ºC. Its products are very popular in the markets of Russia, Japan, Canada, countries of South-East Asia and Europe. They are used in telecommunication devices, night vision equipment, navigation sensors, detectors and on space vehicles. Suffice it to say that an X-ray spectrometer with a built-in thermoelectric cooler of Russian make was used by the American space agency NASA in the Martian mission (Pathfinder Mission, 1997).** Another fact of interest relates to the present grouping of the GLONASS* national satellites, which includes the German semiconductor laser with a Russian cooler purchased from RMT by its longtime partner from Germany.

In 2006, the company business received support from the Fund for Promotion of Small Enterprises in the Scientific and Technical Field, and in 2009 the Rusnano state corporation got interested in it. At that time a decision was made to expand the output of thermoelectric cooling microcircuits, realized by the company in Varshavskoye Highway two years later. Apart from the main production, there were also located the development department, research center and quality control system service.

The company has ambitious plans: to purchase modern equipment, introduce advanced technologies, increase the number of personnel (up to 250 men in the next three years), boost the production output of modules (this year it is planned to double it and to make 1.5 mln units in 2015). In 2010, the income of RMT made up 146 mln rubles. According to experts, provided additional capacities it can reach 1.3 bln rubles by 2015. "We are facing a very ambitious task," said Anatoly Chubais, Director General of Rusnano at the opening ceremony of the production site in Varshavskoye Highway, "to bring the company share in the world mar-

* Extrusion is a process of producing articles from polymer materials by forcing of their melt through a moulding hole.--Ed.

** See: I. Mitrofanov, "Unlocking Martian Enigmas", Science in Russia, No. 6, 2002; M. Litvak, "Martian Seasons", Science in Russia, No. 4, 2004.--Ed.

* See: Yu. Nosenko et al., "GLONASS: Today and Tomorrow", Science in Russia, No. 5, 2008.--Ed.

ket of thermal electricity to 10 percent by 2015. We believe that the company personnel and its scientific potential can solve this task in a short time."

The emergence of the new production is a very significant event for Lukyan Anatychuk, President of the International Thermoelectric Academy. "This is what will revive the past fame of Russia in such a field as thermal electricity," he said, "as this scientific trend came into existence exactly in our country." According to Yevgeny Balashov, Head of the Science and Industrial Policy Department of Moscow, this production meets the high up-to-date requirements made on the innovation enterprises of Moscow.