We are witnessing an unprecedented expansion of Internet of Things (IoT) market, whose nodes are already outnumbering human population several times. Despite the huge popularity of IoT, its further expansion is slowed down by a lack of viable power supply methods capable to replace wires or batteries. Due to IoT demand for alternative supply, energy harvesting (EH) gathers attention from scientific groups all around the world. In particular, thermoelectricity (TE) seems to be a natural and intuitive candidate for IoT owing to magnitude and omnipresence of heat losses and amenability to direct, vibrationless, noiseless and reliable conversion. This review provides up-to-date comparison and evaluation of a recent progress in the field of thermoelectricity, resulting primarily from multidisciplinary optimization of materials, topologies and controlling circuitry. The improvement in materials integrates two trends: nanostructural modulation of pre-existing, conventional thermoelectric materials and synthesis of novel ones. Regarding topology, TE responds better and better to miniaturization trend of semiconductor industry, driven by miniaturization trend, by proposing alternatives to conventional π-type topology. And finally, recently developed controlling circuits consume extremely low power while idle, exhibit above-90% efficiency and start-up with ultra-low input voltages. Combined, these improvements position TE closer to marketization than ever before.

我们目睹了物联网（IoT）市场的空前扩张，其节点数量已超过人口数倍。尽管物联网广受欢迎，但由于缺乏能够替代电线或电池的可行电源方法，其进一步扩展速度有所放缓。由于物联网对替代供应的需求，能量收集（EH）引起了全世界科学团体的关注。特别是，热电（TE）似乎是物联网的自然而直观的候选人由于热量损失的大小和无处不在，并且可以直接，无振动，无噪音和可靠地进行转换。本文主要对材料，拓扑和控制电路进行了多学科的优化，从而对热电领域的最新进展进行了最新比较和评估。材料的改进整合了两个趋势：预先存在的常规热电材料的纳米结构调制和新型材料的合成。关于拓扑，TE通过提出常规π型拓扑的替代方案，在小型化趋势的驱动下，对半导体行业小型化趋势的响应越来越好。最后，最近开发的控制电路在空闲时消耗的功率极低，效率高达90％以上，并以超低的输入电压启动。综合起来，这些改进使TE比以往任何时候都更接近市场化。