Flexible thermoelectric fabrics based on self-assembled tellurium nanorods with a large power factor.

Highly-flexible thermoelectric fabrics were fabricated based on a layered structure, composed of a thin active layer of self-assembled tellurium nanorods and a substrate layer of polyvinylidene fluoride. The resulting thermoelectric fabrics show a high room temperature power factor of 45.8 μW m(-1) K(-2), which opens a new avenue to fabricate highly-flexible sustainable energy sources.