Enhanced n-Doping Efficiency of a Naphthalenediimide-Based Copolymer through Polar Side Chains for Organic Thermoelectrics

David Kiefer, Alexander Giovannitti, Hengda Sun, Till Biskup, Anna Hofmann, Marten Koopmans, Camila Cendra, Stefan Weber, L. Jan Anton Koster, Eva Olsson, Jonathan Rivnay, Simone Fabiano, Iain McCulloch, Christian Müller*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

233 Scopus citations

Abstract

N-doping of conjugated polymers either requires a high dopant fraction or yields a low electrical conductivity because of their poor compatibility with molecular dopants. We explore n-doping of the polar naphthalenediimide-bithiophene copolymer p(gNDI-gT2) that carries oligoethylene glycol-based side chains and show that the polymer displays superior miscibility with the benzimidazole-dimethylbenzenamine-based n-dopant N-DMBI. The good compatibility of p(gNDI-gT2) and N-DMBI results in a relatively high doping efficiency of 13% for n-dopants, which leads to a high electrical conductivity of more than 10-1 S cm-1 for a dopant concentration of only 10 mol % when measured in an inert atmosphere. We find that the doped polymer is able to maintain its electrical conductivity for about 20 min when exposed to air and recovers rapidly when returned to a nitrogen atmosphere. Overall, solution coprocessing of p(gNDI-gT2) and N-DMBI results in a larger thermoelectric power factor of up to 0.4 μW K-2 m-1 compared to other NDI-based polymers.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)278-285
Number of pages8
JournalACS Energy Letters
Volume3
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 9 2018

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Chemistry (miscellaneous)
  • Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
  • Fuel Technology
  • Energy Engineering and Power Technology
  • Materials Chemistry

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