Advanced electron microscopy for thermoelectric materials

Thermoelectric power generation, harvesting the widely distributed heat and converting it into electricity, is a promising energy-crisis solution. "Thermoelectric" is a research hotspot in recent fifty years. The properties of a thermoelectric material strongly correlate with its structural features, e.g., external “imperfectness” and intrinsic electronic configurations. Researchers have been realizing the importance of “structure” on “TE”. Advanced electron microscopy can provide chemical, structural and electronic information of materials, and are receiving growing attentions to characterize various structural features of TE materials, which are crucial to understand the material physically and design new materials with desired properties.294