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Design of flexible inorganic thermoelectric devices for decrease of heat loss

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Abstract

Thermoelectric (TE) devices can realize the conversion of heat energy and electrical power based on Seebeck effect and Peltier effect. Among them, flexible TE devices have received more attention recently due to their better attachment to various heat sources and aimed components with arbitrary shapes. To improve the performance of flexible TE devices for various application scenarios, large efforts have been made to design the leg patterns, the electrical and thermal contact issues, and the substrate and encapsulation materials for the decrease of heat loss. This paper is to review the advancements about the design of flexible inorganic TE devices over the last decade. Firstly, the design of flexible thin-film TE devices based on the direction of temperature gradient, including the patterns of TE legs, the fabrication methods, and the flexible substrate materials is summarized. Secondly, the design of wearable TE devices that contains common architecture of the module, the substrates and encapsulations, the electrical and thermal contact, and some thin-film based wearable devices with curving TE legs is demonstrated. Thirdly, the characterizations of the flexibility of TE devices and the current applications are outlined. Moreover, some views about the future development for TE devices are proposed.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge financial support from the National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2015CB932600), the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2017YFA0208000), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21525523, 21802130, 21874121, 21722507 and 21574048), the National Key Basic Research Program of China (Nos. 2014CB931801 and 2016YFA0200700, Z.Y.T.), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21475029 and 91427302, Z.Y.T.), Frontier Science Key Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. QYZDJ-SSW-SLH038, Z.Y.T.), Instrument Developing Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. YZ201311, Z.Y.T.), CAS-CSIRO Cooperative Research Program (No. GJHZ1503, Z.Y.T.), “Strategic Priority Research Program” of Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. XDA09040100, Z.Y.T.) and K. C. Wong Education Foundation, and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) (No. CUG170669).

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  1. Defang Ding and Fengming Sun contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Engineering Research Center of Nano-Geomaterials of Ministry of Education, Faculty of Materials Science and Chemistry, China University of Geosciences (CUG), 388 Lumo Road, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Defang Ding, Fengming Sun & Fan Xia

  2. CAS key laboratory of Nanosystem and Hierarchical Fabrication, CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, No.11, Beiyitiao, Zhongguancun, Beijing, 100190, China

    Zhiyong Tang

  3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19 A Yuquan Rd, Shijingshan District, Beijing, 100049, China

    Zhiyong Tang

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  1. Defang Ding
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  2. Fengming Sun
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  3. Fan Xia
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  4. Zhiyong Tang
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Correspondence to Fan Xia.

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Ding, D., Sun, F., Xia, F. et al. Design of flexible inorganic thermoelectric devices for decrease of heat loss. Nano Res. 14, 2090–2104 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-020-3195-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-020-3195-9

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