Recent advances of electrodeposition of Bi₂Te₃ and its thermoelectric applications in miniaturized power generation and cooling

ABSTRACT

Thermoelectric (TE) technology enables direct conversion between thermal and electrical energies and thus has been regarded as an alternative for energy harvesting and refrigeration. Bismuth telluride (Bi₂Te₃) is the most widely used TE material at room temperature due to its high figure of merit (∼1). Since the first publication on the electrodeposition of Bi₂Te₃ films in 1994, a large number of publications has emerged in the last two decades, owing to its advantages such as simple and safe preparation, high deposition rate, convenient micromachining, good compatibility to semiconductor microfabrication techniques and so on. This article reviews the recent research progress in the electrodeposition of Bi₂Te₃ and its application in TE devices. Additionally, an outlook towards the future development of this area has also been discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Thermoelectric
• bismuth telluride
• electrodeposition
• nanocomposite
• Bi₂Te₃-based ternary alloys
• generator
• cooler
• microstructures

Acknowledgements

We thank Professor Roger W. Whatmore for his generous help to read the manuscript and to provide suggestions to improve it.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work has been supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020-funded project under grant agreement no. 825114 (SmartVista), the Opening Project of State Key Laboratory of High-Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure no. SKL202004SIC, National Science Foundation of China (no. 51702183), the NASF (no. U2230131), and the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD). The authors also acknowledge support from Natural Science Foundation in Jiangsu Province (no. BK20211264) and General Program of Natural Science Research in Colleges of Jiangsu Province (21KJB430023). This publication emanated from research supported in part by a research grant from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and was co-funded under the European Regional Development Fund under grant number 15/IA/360, 12/RC/2276 and 13/RC/2077.