A review on bismuth telluride (Bi2Te3) nanostructure for thermoelectric applications

Abstract Bismuth Telluride (Bi2Te3) is basically known as an efficient thermoelectric material. Nowadays, it has been attracted a great deal of interest in energy harvesting, chip cooling, chip sensing and other field of material science because of its potential applications. In order to produce Bi2Te3 nanostructure, a number of methods such as solvo and hydro thermal, refluxing, straight forward arc–melting and polyol methods have been employed. Among of them, the solvothermal method has been one of the most common methods to fabricate Bi2Te3 nanostructure in thermoelectric applications. But the development of device–quality material has been a challenging task for the researchers, yet. For this reason, this paper provides a review of current research activities on Bi2Te3 nanostructure growth by several methods and its characterization through theoretical and analytical aspects. Moreover, the paper handles a systematic and intensive research work to develop and understand the materials in nanostructure forms.