Brian H wrote: Flipping a “metamaterial” between phases induces current:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aenm.201000048/pdf
Much more effective than thermocouples, it seems.
From my reading, not so much. You need to alternately heat/cool the ferroic material to make it work, it seems. That takes a while, so although current and voltage look OK on an instantaneous basis, the actual power obtained is low.
There has been better & more interesting progress recently on more “standard” thermoelectric materials, including organics.
