n-type charge transport in heavily p-doped polymers

Zhiming Liang, Hyun Ho Choi, Xuyi Luo, Tuo Liu, Ashkan Abtahi, Uma Shantini Ramasamy, J. Andrew Hitron, Kyle N. Baustert, Jacob L. Hempel, Alex M. Boehm, Armin Ansary, Douglas R. Strachan, Jianguo Mei, Chad Risko, Vitaly Podzorov, Kenneth R. Graham

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

79 Scopus citations

Abstract

It is commonly assumed that charge-carrier transport in doped π-conjugated polymers is dominated by one type of charge carrier, either holes or electrons, as determined by the chemistry of the dopant. Here, through Seebeck coefficient and Hall effect measurements, we show that mobile electrons contribute substantially to charge-carrier transport in π-conjugated polymers that are heavily p-doped with strong electron acceptors. Specifically, the Seebeck coefficient of several p-doped polymers changes sign from positive to negative as the concentration of the oxidizing agents FeCl3 or NOBF4 increase, and Hall effect measurements for the same p-doped polymers reveal that electrons become the dominant delocalized charge carriers. Ultraviolet and inverse photoelectron spectroscopy measurements show that doping with oxidizing agents results in elimination of the transport gap at high doping concentrations. This approach of heavy p-type doping is demonstrated to provide a promising route to high-performance n-type organic thermoelectric materials.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)518-524
Number of pages7
JournalNature Materials
Volume20
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2021

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.

Funding

K.R.G., Z.L., T.L., A.M.B. and A. Abtahi. acknowledge the donors of the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund for partial support of this research (grant no. 57619-DNI10). K.R.G., A. Abtahi., K.N.B. and C.R. acknowledge support from the National Science Foundation (DMR-1905734). U.S.R. and C.R. acknowledge partial support from the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program (N00014-18-1-2448). J.L.H. and A. Ansary. were supported through the United States Department of Energy (0000223282) for performance of the low-temperature electrical conductivity measurements. Supercomputing resources on the Lipscomb High-Performance Supercomputing Cluster were provided by the Information Technology Services and the Center for Computational Sciences at the University of Kentucky. V.P. and H.H.C. acknowledge support from the National Science Foundation (ECCS-1806363). H.H.C. acknowledges partial support from the Center for Advanced Soft Electronics at Pohang University, which is funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning of the Republic of Korea as a Global Frontier Project (CASE-2011-0031628). J.M. and X.L. appreciate the support from the National Science Foundation (CAREER award no. 1653909).

FundersFunder number
National Science Foundation Arctic Social Science ProgramDMR-1905734
Office of Naval Research Naval AcademyECCS-1806363, N00014-18-1-2448
U.S. Department of Energy EPSCoR0000223282
American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund57619-DNI10
Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning1653909, CASE-2011-0031628
Center for Advanced Soft Electronics

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • General Chemistry
    • General Materials Science
    • Condensed Matter Physics
    • Mechanics of Materials
    • Mechanical Engineering

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