electricity or vise versa. Thermoelectrics have broad applications in energy harvesting, power generation and thermal management. High-efficiency thermoelectric energy conversion systems requires improvements of intrinsic materials efficiency as well as advancements in system design and manufacturing.

This presentation will cover three important topics of thermoelectrics – materials, manufacturing and systems. First, I will present our recent progresses on nanostructured thermoelectric materials that have led to significant increases in thermoelectric figure of merit ZT. Second, I will talk about additive manufacturing of flexible thermoelectric materials and devices. Finally, this talk will introduce the design and fabrication of high performance thermoelectric generator systems for energy harvesting and micro combined heat and power applications.

The above research breakthroughs have created a new class of sustainable energy technology for automotive, industrial, residential, and personal energy harvesting and thermal management applications.