With the rapid development of modern wearable electronics, powerful and deformable thermoelectric generators have become an urgent need as the power units that convert environmental or body heat into electricity. Existing efforts mostly focused on the assistance for deformability by substrates/additives, the resultant devices usually output much less power and showed very poor power retainment. Elasticity is inherent to all solids, which therefore offers an intrinsic solution for making thermoelectrics deformable without compromise in power output because of its full recoverability. This work demonstrates this in best-performing (Bi, Sb)2(Te, Se)3 thermoelectrics near room temperature, ending up in the film devices with both extraordinary power density and robust recoverable bendability. This originates from the inherent large elasticity for the in-plane orientation, which is enabled by an easy tape stripping approach for the Van der Waals layered structure, allowing the realization of both powerfulness and bendability that are equally important for wearable thermoelectrics.

中文翻译：

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Bi2Te3 热电器件中固有的面内弹性实现了卓越的弯曲性


随着现代可穿戴电子设备的快速发展，将环境或身体热量转化为电能的动力装置，强大且可变形的热电发电机已成为迫切需求。现有的工作主要集中在基板/添加剂对变形性的帮助上，所得器件通常输出的功率要少得多，并且功率保持率很差。弹性是所有固体所固有的，因此，由于其完全可恢复性，它为使热电器件可变形而不影响功率输出提供了一种内在的解决方案。这项工作在接近室温的性能最佳的 （Bi， Sb）2（Te， Se）3 热电器件中证明了这一点，最终在薄膜器件中具有非凡的功率密度和强大的可恢复弯曲性。这源于面内定向固有的大弹性，这是通过范德华分层结构的简单胶带剥离方法实现的，从而实现了对可穿戴热电技术同样重要的功能和可弯曲性。