Exceptional thermoelectric properties of flexible organic−inorganic hybrids with monodispersed and periodic nanophase

• Published in: Nature communications 2018-09, Vol.9 (1), p.3817-8, Article 3817
• Main Authors: Wang, Liming, Zhang, Zimeng, Liu, Yuchen, Wang, Biran, Fang, Lei, Qiu, Jingjing, Zhang, Kun, Wang, Shiren
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 147/135; 147/143; 147/3; 639/301/299/2736; 639/301/357/404; Bismuth tellurides; Conducting polymers; Electric Conductivity; Electricity; Electron transport; Energy; Heat conductivity; Humanities and Social Sciences; Hybrids; Inorganic Chemicals - chemistry; Mechanical Phenomena; multidisciplinary; Nanoparticles; Nanoparticles - chemistry; Nanoparticles - ultrastructure; Organic Chemicals - chemistry; Organic materials; Phonons; Plasma etching; Polymers; Power factor; Properties (attributes); Scanning electron microscopy; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Temperature; Thermal Conductivity; Thermoelectric materials
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-06251-9

Flexible organic−inorganic hybrids are promising thermoelectric materials to recycle waste heat in versatile formats. However, current organic/inorganic hybrids suffer from inferior thermoelectric properties due to aggregate nanostructures. Here we demonstrate flexible organic−inorganic hybrids where size-tunable Bi 2 Te 3 nanoparticles are discontinuously monodispersed in the continuous conductive polymer phase, completely distinct from traditional bi-continuous hybrids. Periodic nanofillers significantly scatter phonons while continuous conducting polymer phase provides favored electronic transport, resulting in ultrahigh power factor of ~1350 μW m −1  K −2 and ultralow in-plane thermal conductivity of ~0.7 W m −1  K −1 . Consequently, figure-of-merit (ZT) of 0.58 is obtained at room temperature, outperforming all reported organic materials and organic−inorganic hybrids. Thermoelectric properties of as-fabricated hybrids show negligible change for bending 100 cycles, indicating superior mechanical flexibility. These findings provide significant scientific foundation for shaping flexible thermoelectric functionality via synergistic integration of organic and inorganic components. The potential of flexible organic/inorganic hybrids for thermoelectrics is limited by the inability to control their microstructure. Here, the authors demonstrate polymer-nanoparticle hybrids with a monodispersed, periodic nanophase that shows high thermoelectric performance at room temperature.