MoS2-Based Thermoelectric Materials: Current Advances and Future Prospects in Micro-Thermoelectric Devices.

Thermoelectric (TE) materials, capable of directly converting waste heat into electricity and enabling solid-state cooling, hold great potential for self-powered microelectronics and miniature sensors in the Internet of Things (IoT) and wearable technologies. Two-dimensional (2D) MoS2 (molybdenum disulfide) stands out as a promising candidate due to its compatibility with CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) back-end-of-line processes, which are well-established in microelectronics fabrication. It is experimentally suggested that bilayer MoS2 exhibits an ultra-high-power factor (PF) of 85 µW cm-1 K-2, which is attributed to its optimized electronic band structure and higher density of states near the Fermi level (EF). However, experimental figure of merit (zT) values for most MoS2-based mesoscale materials still remain low, typically below 0.2 near room temperature, due to the intrinsic high thermal conductivity of 2D MoS2 and uncontrolled dimensionality in MoS2 bulks. This review summarizes recent advances in the methods for preparing the MoS2-based TE materials and the strategies for tuning the TE performance of MoS2 through doping, intercalation, hetero-structuring, and unique microstructure optimization strategies. In the end, current challenges and future perspectives regarding the further improvement of zT values for MoS2 and the commercialization of CMOS-compatible, high-performance MoS2-based TE devices are discussed.