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Influence of dopant size and electron affinity on the electrical conductivity and thermoelectric properties of a series of conjugated polymers

Journal Article · · Journal of Materials Chemistry. A
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1039/C8TA05922E· OSTI ID:1482091
 [1];  [2];  [1];  [3];  [1];  [4];  [1];  [5];  [1];  [3];  [2];  [1]
  1. Univ. of Kentucky, Lexington, KY (United States)
  2. Georgia Inst. of Technology, Atlanta, GA (United States)
  3. Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN (United States)
  4. Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Shirley, NY (United States)
  5. South China Normal Univ. (People's Republic of China)

Here, chemical doping is widely used to manipulate the electrical and thermoelectric properties of organic semiconductors, yet intelligent design of polymer–dopant systems remains elusive. It is challenging to predict the electrical and thermoelectric properties of doped organic semiconductors due to the large number of variables impacting these properties, including film morphology, dopant and polymer energetics, dopant size, and degree of polaron delocalization. Herein, a series of dopants with varying sizes and electron affinities (EAs) are combined with polymers of differing ionization energies (IEs) to investigate how the difference between polymer IE and dopant EA influences the doping efficiency and electrical conductivity, and how the dopant size influences the thermoelectric properties. Our experiments demonstrate that at low doping levels the doping efficiency strongly depends on the difference between the polymer IE and dopant EA; the effectiveness of doping on increasing electrical conductivity drastically decreases at high loadings for the molybdenum dithiolene complexes, while FeCl3 remains effective at high loadings; and the large molybdenum complexes lead to more delocalized polarons as compared to FeCl3. To take advantage of the complementary doping characteristics of the molybdenum complexes and FeCl3, both dopants are employed simultaneously to reach high power factors at relatively low dopant concentrations.

Research Organization:
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0012704
OSTI ID:
1482091
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1464569
Report Number(s):
BNL--209436-2018-JAAM
Journal Information:
Journal of Materials Chemistry. A, Journal Name: Journal of Materials Chemistry. A Journal Issue: 34 Vol. 6; ISSN JMCAET; ISSN 2050-7488
Publisher:
Royal Society of ChemistryCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Dodecaborane‐Based Dopants Designed to Shield Anion Electrostatics Lead to Increased Carrier Mobility in a Doped Conjugated Polymer journal January 2019
Effect of Heteroatom and Doping on the Thermoelectric Properties of Poly(3-alkylchalcogenophenes) journal October 2018
Ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy of doped P3HT films: distinguishing free and trapped polarons journal January 2019
Interfacial charge-transfer doping of metal halide perovskites for high performance photovoltaics journal January 2019
Designing π-conjugated polymer blends with improved thermoelectric power factors journal January 2019