Enhanced Molecular Packing of a Conjugated Polymer with High Organic Thermoelectric Power Factor

The detailed relationship between film morphology and the performance of solution processed n-type organic thermoelectric (TE) devices is investigated. It is interesting to find that the better ordered molecular packing of n-type polymer can be achieved by adding a small fraction of dopant molecules, which is not observed before. The better ordered structure will be favorable for the charge carrier mobility. Meanwhile, dopant molecules improve free carrier concentration via doping reaction. As a result, a significantly enhanced electrical conductivity (12 S cm^-1) and power factor (25.5 μW m^-1 K^-2) of TE devices are obtained. Furthermore, the phase separation of conjugated polymer/dopants is observed for the first time with resonant soft X-ray scattering. Our results indicate that the miscibility of conjugated polymers and dopants plays an important role on controlling the morphology and doping efficiency of TE devices.