Chemically Transformed Ag<sub>2</sub>Te Nanowires on Polyvinylidene Fluoride Membrane For Flexible Thermoelectric Applications
Ankit Kashyap, Divya Rawat, Debattam Sarkar, Niraj K. Singh, Kanishka Biswas, Ajay Soni
Abstract
Abstract 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 (Ag 2 Te) nanowires (NWs), which are chemically transformed from uniquely synthesized and scalable tellurium (Te) NWs. Conducting Ag 2 Te NWs composites have shown an ultralow total thermal conductivity ~0.22 W/mK surpassing the bulk melt‐grown Ag 2 Te ~1.23 W/mK at ~300 K, which is attributed to the nanostructuring of the material. Flexible thermoelectric device consisting of 4 legs (n‐type) of Ag 2 Te NWs on polyvinylidene fluoride membrane displays a significant output voltage ( V oc ) ~2.3 mV upon human touch and V oc ~18 mV at temperature gradient, ΔT ~50 K, which shows the importance of NWs based flexible thermoelectric devices to power up the low power wearable electronics.