Plastic inorganic thermoelectric materials

Summary

Thermoelectric (TE) technology provides effective ways for both solid cooling and power generation without moving parts, whereas its applications are not as extensive as expected. One of the obstacles to practical applications is the intrinsic brittleness of the state-of-the-art inorganic TE materials, especially for applications in the rapidly developing field of flexible electronics. The recent discovery of plastic inorganic semiconductors opened a new approach to develop flexible and/or curved TE devices to meet the new demands for cutting-edge technologies. Great progresses have been achieved in the short period since the discovery of plastic semiconductor Ag₂S in 2018, such as the exploration of new plastic compounds and deformation mechanism, the improvement of TE performance in plastic semiconductors, and the preparation of flexible/curved TE devices using these newly developed TE materials. Nevertheless, great challenges are still faced in this new field, mainly including the lack of comprehensive understanding of the deformation mechanism, difficulties in the synergetic modulation of TE performance and deformability, and the lack of technological innovation in both processing this new category of TE materials and integrating it into devices.