Selenium and tellurium nanomaterials

major advantages, drawbacks as weOver the last 40 years, the rapid and exponential growth of nanotechnology led to the development of vari- ous synthesis methodologies to generate nanomaterials different in size, shape and composition to be applied in various fields. In particular, nanostructures composed of Selenium (Se) or Tellurium (Te) have attracted in- creasing interest, due to their intermediate nature between metallic and non-metallic elements, being defined as metalloids. Indeed, this key shared feature of Se and Te allows us the use of their compounds in a variety of applications fields, such as for manufacturing photocells, photographic exposure meters, piezoelectric devices, and thermoelectric materials, to name a few. Considering also that the chemical-physical properties of ele- ments result to be much more emphasized when they are assembled at the nanoscale range, huge efforts have been made to develop highly effective synthesis methods to generate Se- or Te-nanomaterials. In this context, the present book chapter will explore the most used chemical and/or physical methods exploited to gener- ate different morphologies of metalloid-nanostructures, focusing also the attention on thell as the safety related to these synthetic procedures.