The recent advancements in thermoelectric materials are largely credited to two factors, namely established physical theories and advanced materials engineering methods. The developments in the physical theories have come a long way from the “phonon glass electron crystal” paradigm to the more recent band convergence and nanostructuring, which consequently results in drastic improvement in the thermoelectric figure of merit value. On the other hand, the progresses in materials fabrication methods and processing technologies have enabled the discovery of new physical mechanisms, hence further facilitating the emergence of high-performance thermoelectric materials. In recent years, many comprehensive review articles are focused on various aspects of thermoelectrics ranging from thermoelectric materials, physical mechanisms and materials process techniques in particular with emphasis on solid state reactions. While bottom-up approaches to obtain thermoelectric materials have widely been employed in thermoelectrics, comprehensive reviews on summarizing such methods are still rare. In this review, we will outline a variety of bottom-up strategies for preparing high-performance thermoelectric materials. In addition, state-of-art, challenges and future opportunities in this domain will be commented.

热电材料的最新进展很大程度上归功于两个因素，即已建立的物理理论和先进的材料工程方法。从“声子玻璃电子晶体”范式到最近的能带会聚和纳米结构，物理理论的发展已经取得了长足的进步，从而导致了热电品质因数的大幅提高。另一方面，材料制造方法和加工技术的进步使得新的物理机制的发现成为可能，从而进一步促进了高性能热电材料的出现。近年来，许多综合评论文章都集中在热电材料、物理机制和材料加工技术等热电学的各个方面，特别是固态反应。虽然自下而上获得热电材料的方法已广泛应用于热电领域，但对总结此类方法的全面综述仍然很少。在这篇综述中，我们将概述用于制备高性能热电材料的各种自下而上的策略。此外，还将对该领域的最新技术、挑战和未来机遇进行评论。