Abstract
Autonomous, bio-integrated electronic systems, such as smart prosthetics and functional electronic skins, require materials combining energy harvesting with perception. Although Indium Antimonide is well established in high-speed electronics owing to its high electron mobility, yet its large intrinsic thermal conductivity has limited its use in thermoelectric energy harvesting. Here, we introduce a peritectic engineering strategy to reduce the thermal bottleneck. Thermodynamic control of the peritectic reaction generates hierarchical InBi@(Bi, Sb) core–shell nanostructures that reduce the room-temperature lattice thermal conductivity from 13.1 to 6.84 W m-1 K-1. This microstructural manipulation raise the power factor by 98% at 473 K, yielding a marked decoupling of electron and phonon transport. A compact, self-powered InSb-InBi/Cu3InSnSe5 module drives commercial electronics under moderate thermal gradients. The module also functions as a zero-power thermo-tactile interface for prosthetic limbs, enabling covert thermal messaging via Morse code decoded by a transfer learning algorithm a transfer learning algorithm. This platform enables the integration of thermoelectric materials into intelligent human-machine interfaces, advancing the development of self-powered sensory systems.
Data availability
The data generated in this study are provided in the Source Data file. Source data are provided with this paper.
Code availability
The codes and dataset for machine-learning algorithms used in this study are available in the DR-NTU repository database under accession code https://doi.org/10.21979/N9/M0XGYY.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 2 (MOE-T2EP50123-0014 and MOE-T2EP50223-0007, L.W.), the Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 1 (RG72/24 and RG159/25, L.W.), and A*STAR under MTC IRG (M24N7c0079, L.W.), the Nanjing International Science and Technology Cooperation Project (202512034, T.Z.). The technical assistance from the Analytical and Testing Center of HUST and the Wuhan University of Technology is gratefully acknowledged.
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J.X. and L.W. designed the project. J.X., Wang Li, Y.W., and C.X. fabricated the samples, measured material properties, conducted transport calculations, and performed microstructure characterizations. J.X. and Z.L. developed the neural network decision-making. P.Z., S.Y., Wulong Li, L.C., Tianzhu Zhou, and A.B. provided guidance on manuscript organization and scientific framing. J.X., L.W., Ting Zhang, Y.L., and J.Y. wrote and revised the manuscript. All authors participated in discussing the results.
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Xin, J., Luo, Z., Li, W. et al. Peritectic engineering enhanced thermoelectrics for smart thermal messaging devices. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-71799-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-71799-w
