Polymer-free semiconducting carbon nanotube networks demonstrate unprecedented equivalent n- and p-type thermoelectric performance.

Semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (s-SWCNTs) have recently attracted attention for their promise as active components in a variety of optical and electronic applications, including thermoelectricity generation. Here we demonstrate that removing the wrapping polymer from the highly enriched s-SWCNT network leads to substantial improvements in charge carrier transport and thermoelectric power factor. These improvements arise primarily from an increase in charge carrier mobility within the s-SWCNT networks because of removal of the insulating polymer and control of the level of nanotube bundling in the network, which enables higher thin-film conductivity for a given carrier density. Ultimately, these studies demonstrate that highly enriched s-SWCNT thin films, in the complete absence of any accompanying semiconducting polymer, can attain thermoelectric power factors in the range of ∼400 μW m −1 K −2 , which is on par with that of some of the best single-component organic thermoelectrics demonstrated to date.

Conjugated alternating copolymers were designed with low optical band gaps for organic photovoltaic (OPV) applications by considering quinoid resonance stabilization. Copolymers of thienoisoindoledione (TID) and benzodithiophene (BDT) had appreciably lower band gaps (by ∼0.4 eV) than copolymers of thienopyrroledione (TPD) and BDT. In addition to intramolecular charge transfer stabilization (i.e., the “push-pull” effect), the former copolymer’s quinoid resonance structure is stabilized by a gain in aromatic resonance energy in the isoindole unit. Additionally, the HOMO levels of the copolymers could be tuned with chemical modifications to the BDT monomer, resulting in open circuit voltages of greater than 1 V in photovoltaic devices. Despite the optimized band gap, TID containing polymers displayed lower photoconductance, as determined by time-resolved microwave conductivity, and decreased device efficiency (2.1% vs 4.8%) as compared with TPD analogues. These results were partially attributed to morphology, as computational modeling suggests TID copolymers have a twisted backbone, and X-ray diffraction data indicate the polymer films do not form ordered domains, whereas TPD copolymers are considerably more planar and are shown to form partially ordered domains.

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