Cooling technology that is both compact and flexible is increasingly vital for the thermal management of wearable electronics and personal comfort. Electrocaloric (EC) cooling provides a potential solution, but the low adiabatic temperature change of EC materials has been the bottleneck in its progress. We demonstrate a cascade EC cooling device that increases the temperature change, with enhanced cooling power and cooling efficiency at the same time. The device integrates multiple units of EC polymer elements and an electrostatic actuation mechanism, all operating in synergy. Every two adjacent EC elements function in antiphase (in terms of both actuation and EC effect) to allow heat flow to be continuously relayed from the heat source to the heat sink. The antiphase operation also enables internal charge recycling, which enhances the energy efficiency. Operating at the EC electric field at which the adiabatic temperature change of the material is 3.0 K, a four-layer cascade device achieves a maximum temperature lift of 8.7 K under no-load conditions. The coefficient of performance is estimated to be 9.0 at the temperature lift of 2.7 K and 10.4 at zero temperature lift.

紧凑和灵活的冷却技术对于可穿戴电子设备的热管理和个人舒适性越来越重要。电热（EC）冷却提供了一种可能的解决方案，但是EC材料的绝热温度低变化一直是其发展的瓶颈。我们展示了一种级联EC冷却装置，该装置可增加温度变化，同时增强冷却功率和冷却​​效率。该设备集成了多个EC聚合物元件单元和一个静电致动机构，所有这些组件协同工作。每两个相邻的EC元件都处于反相状态（就致动和EC效果而言），以允许热量从热源连续传递到散热器。反相操作还可以实现内部电荷回收，从而提高了能源效率。在EC电场下，材料的绝热温度变化为3.0 K，四层级联器件在空载条件下可达到8.7 K的最大温度升程。在2.7 K的温度提升下，性能系数估计为9.0，在零温度的提升下，性能系数为10.4。