Patent ID: 7559215

Claim:
A method of drawing a thermoelectrically active material in a glass cladding, the method comprising the steps of: sealing off one end of a glass tube such that the tube has an open end and a closed end; introducing semiconductor thermoelectrically active material particles inside the glass tube; heating a portion of the glass tube such that the glass partially melts and collapses such that the partially melted glass tube provides an ampoule containing the thermoelectrically active material particles; introducing the ampoule containing the thermoelectrically active material particles into a heating device; increasing the temperature within the heating device such that the thermoelectrically active material particles melt and the glass tube is heated enough for it to be drawn; drawing a glass clad wire comprising a continuous wire of semiconductor thermoelectrically active material; bunching the glass clad continuous wire of thermoelectrically active material together with other glass clad continuous wires of thermoelectrically active material; and redrawing one or more times in succession to produce a multi core cable having a plurality of individual glass clad continuous wires of thermoelectrically active material that are insulated from each other by the glass cladding; wherein the semiconductor thermoelectrically active material comprises lead telluride, bismuth telluride, silicon germanium, zinc antimonide, or cadmium antimonide.