Chemically Transformed Ag₂Te Nanowires on Polyvinylidene Fluoride Membrane For Flexible Thermoelectric Applications

Flexible thermoelectric devices of nanomaterials have shown a great potential for applications in wearable to remotely located electronics with desired shapes and geometries. Continuous powering up the low power flexible electronics is a major challenge. We are reporting a flexible thermoelectric module prepared from silver telluride (Ag2Te) nanowires (NWs), which are chemically transformed from uniquely synthesized and scalable tellurium (Te) NWs. Conducting Ag2Te NWs composites have shown an ultralow total thermal conductivity similar to 0.22 W/mK surpassing the bulk melt-grown Ag2Te similar to 1.23 W/mK at similar to 300 K, which is attributed to the nanostructuring of the material. Flexible thermoelectric device consisting of 4 legs (n-type) of Ag2Te NWs on polyvinylidene fluoride membrane displays a significant output voltage (V-oc) similar to 2.3 mV upon human touch and V-oc similar to 18 mV at temperature gradient, Delta T similar to 50 K, which shows the importance of NWs based flexible thermoelectric devices to power up the low power wearable electronics.