Recent Developments in Flexible Thermoelectric Devices

Flexible thermoelectrics, including flexible thermoelectric materials and devices, can directly convert the heat from human body into useful electricity, providing a promising solution for uninterrupted power to wearables. In the past decade, flexible thermoelectrics has achieved notable progress. Various kinds of flexible thermoelectric materials have been developed and some of them have been fabricated into flexible thermoelectric devices, showing the ability to generate nW-level or even μW-level electricity. Herein, the basic design principles and typical configurations of flexible thermoelectric devices, as well as the requirements on thermoelectric materials to achieve high performance flexible thermoelectric devices, are first introduced. Then, the recent progress achieved in flexible thermoelectric devices based on organics materials, traditional inorganic materials, other organic/inorganic composites/hybrids, and plastic deformable inorganic semiconductors, respectively, are summarized. Finally, an outlook on the future development of flexible thermoelectrics is briefly given. This study sheds light on the further development of flexible thermoelectrics.