Which mechanism limits the maximum achievable cooling temperature in thermoelectric molecular coolers?

💡 Explanation

When temperature decreases in thermoelectric molecular coolers, lower energy (phonon) vibrations become dominant, leading to increased parasitic thermal back-transport offsetting the cooling by electron transport according to the Seebeck effect. Therefore phonon dominance limits cooling, rather than quantum tunneling, joule heating or interface oxidation which rely on different processes.

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