<br/>Conducting polymers (CPs) have recently gained the attention of the scientific community due to their prospective use in thermoelectric applications. Particularly, it has been proven that an important parameter for tuning the thermoelectric properties and the charge transport behavior of CPs is the shape of the density of states (DoS) near the band edge, where a steeper band edge initiates a transition from a Fermi glass to a semi-metal leading to higher thermoelectric efficiencies. In the present study, we discuss the correlation between material structure, electronic structure and transport/thermoelectric properties for a series of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) samples of constant carrier concentration, for which hopping transport was demonstrated to be the dominant charge transport mechanism. Additionally, a metal-to-insulator transition was observed for these systems at low temperatures, which was dependent to the increasing thin film crystallinity. Finally, the CPs were combined with inorganic components, in thin film configuration, creating hybrid thermoelectric materials to further enhance the thermoelectric efficiency. The thermoelectric properties of these hybrid materials were tuned via the electronic interfacial properties resulting to high performance hybrid thermoelectric generators operating at room temperature conditions.<br/>

High performance polymer and polymer/inorganic thermoelectric materials

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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