Ultra-flexible β-Cu2-δSe-based p-type printed thermoelectric films

Abstract Flexibility in a printed thermoelectric (TE) material is vital for low-cost manufacturing of shape-conformable TE devices. In this work, a one-pot facile method was adapted to prepare a Cu-Se-based printable ink. The ink was printed on flexible substrates followed by sintering to let β-Cu2-δSe phase be formed. The film is found to be exceptionally flexible with a change in film resistance μ W with an open-circuit voltage VOC of 12 mV is demonstrated using a TE-generator (Flex-TEG) with two thermocouples made of the prepared material.