Samsung’s next-generation Peltier cooling technology, co-developed with the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, has received a 2025 R&D 100 award, which is apparently often referred to as the Nobel Prize of Engineering and the Oscars of Innovation. The award is handed out by R&D World Magazine and recognizes the world’s 100 most innovative technologies each year.
The Peltier cooling tech was first unveiled earlier this year in a publication in the science journal Nature Communications. Samsung engineers worked with Dr. Rama Venkatasubramanian’s thermoelectrics research team using nanotechnology to improve the efficiency and performance of a Peltier device, which uses a semiconductor material for cooling instead of traditional refrigerants, that can be harmful to the environment.
This research has improved the efficiency of Peltier devices by up to 75% while requiring only 0.1% of the material compared to the previous generation. This should, in the future, allow for small, lightweight cooling devices that are environmentally friendly.
In a probably not very near future, this could be used to cool cars, data centers, homes, offices, and more. Samsung has first used a Peltier cooling device in its AI Hybrid Refrigerator which was shown at IFA last year.