Tuning carrier concentration via chemical doping is the most successful strategy to optimize the thermoelectric figure of merit. Nevertheless, how the dopants affect charge transport is not completely understood. Here we unravel the doping effects by explicitly including the scattering of charge carriers with dopants on thermoelectric properties of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene), PEDOT, which is a p-type thermoelectric material with the highest figure of merit reported. We corroborate that the PEDOT exhibits a distinct transition from the aromatic to quinoid-like structure of backbone, and a semiconductor-to-metal transition with an increase in the level of doping. We identify a close-to-unity charge transfer from PEDOT to the dopant, and find that the ionized impurity scattering dominates over the acoustic phonon scattering in the doped PEDOT. By incorporating both scattering mechanisms, the doped PEDOT exhibits mobility, Seebeck coefficient and power factors in very good agreement with the experimental data, and the lightly doped PEDOT exhibits thermoelectric properties superior to the heavily doped one. We reveal that the thermoelectric transport is highly anisotropic in ordered crystals, and suggest to utilize large power factors in the direction of polymer backbone and low lattice thermal conductivity in the stacking and lamellar directions, which is viable in chain-oriented amorphous nanofibers.

Both intrinsic and extrinsic charge transport properties of methylammonium lead triiodide perovskites are investigated from first-principles. The weak electron-phonon couplings are revealed, with the largest deformation potential (~ 5 eV) comparable to that of single layer graphene. The intrinsic mobility limited by the acoustic phonon scattering is as high as a few thousands cm2 V−1 s−1 with the hole mobility larger than the electron mobility. At the impurity density of 1018 cm−3, the charged impurity scattering starts to dominate and lowers the electron mobility to 101 cm2 V−1 s−1 and the hole mobility to 72.2 cm2 V−1 s−1. The high intrinsic mobility warrants the long and balanced diffusion length of charge carriers. With the control of impurities or defects as well as charge traps in these perovskites, enhanced efficiencies of solar cells with simplified device structures are promised.

The development of organic materials for visible light driven photocatalytic is regarded as one of the most promising avenues to solve environment and solar-energy utilization issue. Here, we present that one-dimensional supramolecular organic nanofibers, self-assembled by a carboxy-substituent perylene diimide (PDI) molecule through H-type π-π stacking and hydrogen bonding, can act as a robust and effective photocatalyst for both organic pollutants degradation and water oxidation under visible light without the apparent need for an added metal co-catalysts. We corroborate that the highly efficient and stable activity of such supramolecar photocatalyst are attributed to the introduction of terminal carboxyl group, which leads to well-defined and stable Htype π-π stacking, and constructs the internal electric field in supramolecular nanofibers, thereby resulting in the deepening of valence band (VB) and the enhancement of migration and separation efficiency of photo-induced charge carriers. Our findings may help the development of semiconducting-based organic supramolecular materials for applications in environment protection and water splitting.

Room temperature phosphorescence (RTP) from pure organic material is rare due to the low phosphorescence quantum efficiency. That is why the recent discovery of crystallization induced RTP for several organic molecules aroused strong interests. Through a combined quantum and molecular mechanics CASPT2/AMBER scheme taking terephthalic acid (TPA) as example, we found that electrostatic interaction not only can induce an enhanced radiative decay T1 → S0 through the dipole-allowed S1 intermediate state, but also can hinder the nonradiative decay process upon crystallization. From gas phase to crystal, the nature of S1 state is converted to (1)(π,π*) from (1)(n,π*) character, enhancing transition dipole moment and serving as an efficient intermediate radiative pathway for T1 → S0 transition, and eventually leading to a boosted RTP. The intermolecular packing also blocks the nonradiative decay channel of the high-frequency C═O stretching vibration with large vibronic coupling, rather than the conventional low-frequency aromatic rotation in crystal. This mechanism also holds for other organic compounds that contain both ketones and aromatic rings.

Control of doping is crucial for enhancing the thermoelectric efficiency of a material. However, doping of organic semiconductors often reduces their mobilities, making it challenging to improve the thermoelectric performance. Targeting on this problem, we propose a simple model to quantitatively obtain the optimal doping level and the peak value of thermoelectric figure of merit (zT) from the intrinsic carrier mobility, the lattice thermal conductivity, and the effective density of states. The model reveals that high intrinsic mobility and low lattice thermal conductivity give rise to a low optimal doping level and a high maximum zT. To demonstrate how the model works, we investigate, from first-principles calculations, the thermoelectric properties of a novel class of excellent hole transport organic materials, 2,7-dialkyl[1]benzothieno[3,2-b][1]benzothiophene derivatives (C n -BTBTs). The first-principles calculations show that BTBTs exhibit high mobilities, extremely low thermal conductivities (∼0.2 W m–1 K–1), and large Seebeck coefficients (∼0.3 mV K–1), making them ideal candidates for thermoelectric applications. Moreover, the maximum zT predicted from the simple model agrees with that observed from the first-principles calculations. This study has provided new insights to guide the search for organic thermoelectric materials and their optimization.