ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the avenues of research while focusing on our work on a “bottom-up” approach for the synthesis of bulk materials with nanograin domains that exhibit enhanced thermoelectric (TE) properties. It reviews the bottom-up approach in terms of understanding the role of chemical synthesis and densification on the TE properties of known TE materials with nanoscale domains. The chapter demonstrates the successful application of the top-down approach toward nanostructured TE materials processing. TE properties depend largely on crystal structure, composition, microstructure, defects, and impurities, and methods for materials preparation require appropriate tuning of the synthesis parameters for optimization. The synthesis of TE materials that contain nanoscale domains are, to a large extent, prepared by physical processes that can basically be described as “top-down” approaches. High-temperature solid-state or liquid-phase reactions were traditionally employed in the synthesis of TE materials.
