Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
<mark>Journal publication date</mark> | 7/11/2015 |
---|---|
<mark>Journal</mark> | Nanoscale |
Issue number | 41 |
Volume | 7 |
Number of pages | 5 |
Pages (from-to) | 17338-17342 |
Publication Status | Published |
Early online date | 25/09/15 |
<mark>Original language</mark> | English |
We investigate strategies for increasing the thermopower of crown-ether-bridged anthraquinones. The novel design feature of these molecules is the presence of either (1) crown-ether or (2) diaza-crown-ether bridges attached to the side of the current-carrying anthraquinone wire. The crown-ether side groups selectively bind alkali-metal cations and when combined with TCNE or TTF dopants, provide a large phase-space for optimising thermoelectric properties. We find that the optimum combination of cations and dopants depends on the temperature range of interest. The thermopowers of both 1 and 2 are negative and at room temperature are optimised by binding with TTF alone, achieving thermpowers of -600 mu V K-1 and -285 mu V K-1 respectively. At much lower temperatures, which are relevant to cascade coolers, we find that for 1, a combination of TTF and Na+ yields a maximum thermopower of -710 mu V K-1 at 70 K, whereas a combination of TTF and Li+ yields a maximum thermopower of -600 mu V K-1 at 90 K. For 2, we find that TTF doping yields a maximum thermopower of -800 mu VK-1 at 90 K, whereas at 50 K, the largest thermopower (of -600 mu V K-1) is obtain by a combination TTF and K+ doping. At room temperature, we obtain power factors of 73 mu W m(-1) K-2 for 1 (in combination with TTF and Na+) and 90 mu W m(-1) K-2 for 2 (with TTF). These are higher or comparable with reported power factors of other organic materials.