Promoting Bandlike Transport in Well-Defined and Highly Conducting Polymer Thin Films upon Controlling Dopant Oxidation Levels and Polaron Effects AITranslate

Basic Information:

DOI：https://doi.org/10.1021/acsapm.1c00069

Chinese Library Classification Number:

Citation Information:

To close the technological gap between laboratory-based conducting polymers and commercially available inorganic semiconductors, it is imperative to develop synthesis approaches that allow for the fabrication of morphology-controlled polymers where charge carriers can be readily fine-tuned. Herein, our studies provide a detailed investigation of the polymerization protocols needed to afford the fabrication of well-defined and highly ordered polymer thin films. Using poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) as a case study, we demonstrate strong correlations between the polymerization protocols and counterion dopants in driving the observed changes in crystallinity and π-stacking ordering of fabricated thin films. Upon the fabrication of thin films with controlled morphologies, we can provide an in-depth characterization of the thermoelectric properties (i.e., electrical conductivity, Seebeck coefficient, and power factor) of doped PEDOT chains as a function of counterion dopants and oxidation levels. Given the high power factors, we fit the thermoelectric characteristics of our samples to determine the charge transport mechanism in PEDOT thin films as a function of polymerization protocols and counterion dopants. On the basis of the fits, we report record-breaking transport function values which are indicative of bandlike transport in PEDOT thin films. As such, these high transport function values may point to the fabrication of well-defined and highly conducting polymers that can achieve thermoelectric figure of merit values above 0.6 at room temperature.