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Strong Suppression of Thermal Conductivity in the Presence of Long Terminal Alkyl Chains in Low‐Disorder Molecular Semiconductors

Published version
Peer-reviewed

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Authors

Selezneva, Ekaterina 
Vercouter, Alexandre 
Schweicher, Guillaume 
Lemaur, Vincent 
Broch, Katharina 

Abstract

Abstract: While the charge transport properties of organic semiconductors have been extensively studied over the recent years, the field of organics‐based thermoelectrics is still limited by a lack of experimental data on thermal transport and of understanding of the associated structure–property relationships. To fill this gap, a comprehensive experimental and theoretical investigation of the lattice thermal conductivity in polycrystalline thin films of dinaphtho[2,3‐b:2′,3′‐f]thieno[3,2‐b]thiophene (Cn‐DNTT‐Cn with n = 0, 8) semiconductors is reported. Strikingly, thermal conductivity appears to be much more isotropic than charge transport, which is confined to the 2D molecular layers. A direct comparison between experimental measurements (3ω–Völklein method) and theoretical estimations (approach‐to‐equilibrium molecular dynamics (AEMD) method) indicates that the in‐plane thermal conductivity is strongly reduced in the presence of the long terminal alkyl chains. This evolution can be rationalized by the strong localization of the intermolecular vibrational modes in C8‐DNTT‐C8 in comparison to unsubstituted DNTT cores, as evidenced by a vibrational mode analysis. Combined with the enhanced charge transport properties of alkylated DNTT systems, this opens the possibility to decouple electron and phonon transport in these materials, which provides great potential for enhancing the thermoelectric figure of merit ZT.

Description

Funder: Consortium des Équipements de Calcul Intensif


Funder: The Leverhulme Trust

Keywords

Research Article, Research Articles, molecular dynamics, organic semiconductors, thermal conductivity, thermoelectrics

Journal Title

Advanced Materials

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0935-9648
1521-4095

Volume Title

Publisher

Sponsorship
Centre for Advanced Materials for Integrated Energy Systems (EP/P007767/1)
Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique de Belgique (2.5020.11 The Leverhulme Trust)