Research on conjugated polymers for thermoelectric applications has made tremendous progress in recent years, which is accompanied by surging interest in molecular doping as a means to achieve the high electrical conductivities that are required. A detailed understanding of the complex relationship between the doping process, the structural as well as energetic properties of the polymer films, and the resulting thermoelectric behavior is slowly emerging. This review summarizes recent developments and strategies that permit enhancing the electrical conductivity of p- and n-type conjugated polymers via molecular doping. The impact of the chemical design of both the polymer and the dopant, the processing conditions, and the resulting nanostructure on the doping efficiency and stability of the doped state are discussed. Attention is paid to the interdependence of the electrical and thermal transport characteristics of semiconductor host-dopant systems and the Seebeck coefficient. Strategies that permit to improve the thermoelectric performance, such as an uniaxial alignment of the polymer backbone in both bulk and thin film geometries, manipulation of the dielectric constant of the polymer, and the variation of the dopant size, are explored. A combination of theory and experiment is predicted to yield new chemical design principles and processing schemes that will ultimately give rise to the next generation of organic thermoelectric materials.
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June 2022
Review Article|
June 14 2022
Charge transport in doped conjugated polymers for organic thermoelectrics
Dorothea Scheunemann
;
Dorothea Scheunemann
a)
1
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology
, 41296 Göteborg, Sweden
2
Centre for Advanced Materials, Heidelberg University
, Im Neuenheimer Feld 225, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
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Emmy Järsvall
;
Emmy Järsvall
1
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology
, 41296 Göteborg, Sweden
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Jian Liu
;
Jian Liu
1
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology
, 41296 Göteborg, Sweden
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Davide Beretta
;
Davide Beretta
3
Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology
, Ueberlandstrasse 129, 8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland
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Simone Fabiano
;
Simone Fabiano
4
Laboratory of Organic Electronics, Department of Science and Technology, Linköping University
, Norrköping, Sweden
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Mario Caironi
;
Mario Caironi
5
Center for Nano Science and Technology @PoliMi, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia
, Via Pascoli 70/3, Milano 20133, Italy
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Martijn Kemerink
;
Martijn Kemerink
2
Centre for Advanced Materials, Heidelberg University
, Im Neuenheimer Feld 225, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
6
Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, Linköping University
, Linköping, Sweden
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Christian Müller
Christian Müller
b)
1
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology
, 41296 Göteborg, Sweden
b)Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: [email protected]
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Dorothea Scheunemann
1,2,a)
Emmy Järsvall
1
Jian Liu
1
Davide Beretta
3
Simone Fabiano
4
Mario Caironi
5
Martijn Kemerink
2,6
Christian Müller
1,b)
1
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology
, 41296 Göteborg, Sweden
2
Centre for Advanced Materials, Heidelberg University
, Im Neuenheimer Feld 225, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
3
Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology
, Ueberlandstrasse 129, 8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland
4
Laboratory of Organic Electronics, Department of Science and Technology, Linköping University
, Norrköping, Sweden
5
Center for Nano Science and Technology @PoliMi, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia
, Via Pascoli 70/3, Milano 20133, Italy
6
Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, Linköping University
, Linköping, Sweden
b)Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: [email protected]
Chem. Phys. Rev. 3, 021309 (2022)
Article history
Received:
December 03 2021
Accepted:
May 12 2022
Citation
Dorothea Scheunemann, Emmy Järsvall, Jian Liu, Davide Beretta, Simone Fabiano, Mario Caironi, Martijn Kemerink, Christian Müller; Charge transport in doped conjugated polymers for organic thermoelectrics. Chem. Phys. Rev. 1 June 2022; 3 (2): 021309. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0080820
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