A single uniform material can generate electricity from heat just by having a specific pattern of tiny holes drilled into it.
Geometrical patterning of voids in a 2D material can engineer its Seebeck coefficient without changing its chemistry. This breakthrough eliminates the need to join two different materials together to create a thermoelectric junction. Physics textbooks have long taught that energy generation from heat requires the interface of two dissimilar substances. This discovery allows for the creation of simpler and more efficient power harvesters from a single sheet of material. It could lead to wearable devices that power themselves using nothing but a patterned layer of graphene and body heat. This effectively removes the most difficult manufacturing step in building small-scale green power sources.
Nanoscale geometrical patterning for junctionless thermoelectrics
research_square · rs-8885712
Abstract Classical thermoelectric (TE) phenomena require a junction between two dissimilar materials with different Seebeck coefficients to either generate current via temperature differences at the junctions (Seebeck effect) or to cool/heat these junctions by applying external current (Peltier effect). While modifying the Seebeck coefficient via material composition and heterostructuring using different materials is well known, changing the Seebeck coefficient of a uniform material just by geom