TY - JOUR AB - Methodologies that involve the use of nanoparticles as “artificial atoms” to rationally build materials in a bottom-up fashion are particularly well-suited to control the matter at the nanoscale. Colloidal synthetic routes allow for an exquisite control over such “artificial atoms” in terms of size, shape, and crystal phase as well as core and surface compositions. We present here a bottom-up approach to produce Pb–Ag–K–S–Te nanocomposites, which is a highly promising system for thermoelectric energy conversion. First, we developed a high-yield and scalable colloidal synthesis route to uniform lead sulfide (PbS) nanorods, whose tips are made of silver sulfide (Ag2S). We then took advantage of the large surface-to-volume ratio to introduce a p-type dopant (K) by replacing native organic ligands with K2Te. Upon thermal consolidation, K2Te-surface modified PbS–Ag2S nanorods yield p-type doped nanocomposites with PbTe and PbS as major phases and Ag2S and Ag2Te as embedded nanoinclusions. Thermoelectric characterization of such consolidated nanosolids showed a high thermoelectric figure-of-merit of 1 at 620 K. AU - Ibáñez, Maria AU - Genç, Aziz AU - Hasler, Roger AU - Liu, Yu AU - Dobrozhan, Oleksandr AU - Nazarenko, Olga AU - Mata, María de la AU - Arbiol, Jordi AU - Cabot, Andreu AU - Kovalenko, Maksym V. ID - 6566 IS - 6 JF - ACS Nano KW - colloidal nanoparticles KW - asymmetric nanoparticles KW - inorganic ligands KW - heterostructures KW - catalyst assisted growth KW - nanocomposites KW - thermoelectrics SN - 1936-0851 TI - Tuning transport properties in thermoelectric nanocomposites through inorganic ligands and heterostructured building blocks VL - 13 ER -