Bottom-Up Engineering Strategies for High-Performance Thermoelectric Materials

The recent advancements in thermoelectric materials are largely credited to two factors, namely established physical theories and advanced materials engineering methods. The developments in the physical theories have come a long way from the "phonon glass electron crystal" paradigm to the more recent band convergence and nanostructuring, which consequently results in drastic improvement in the thermoelectric figure of merit value. On the other hand, the progresses in materials fabrication methods and processing technologies have enabled the discovery of new physical mechanisms, hence further facilitating the emergence of high-performance thermoelectric materials. In recent years, many comprehensive review articles are focused on various aspects of thermoelectrics ranging from thermoelectric materials, physical mechanisms and materials process techniques in particular with emphasis on solid state reactions. While bottom-up approaches to obtain thermoelectric materials have widely been employed in thermoelectrics, comprehensive reviews on summarizing such methods are still rare. In this review, we will outline a variety of bottom-up strategies for preparing high-performance thermoelectric materials. In addition, state-of-art, challenges and future opportunities in this domain will be commented.