High Seebeck effects from conducting polymer: Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) based thin-film device with hybrid metal/polymer/metal architecture

Conductive polymers are of particular interest for thermoelectric applications due to their low thermal conductivity and relatively high electrical conductivity. In this study, commercially available conducting polymer poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) was used in a hybrid metal/polymer/metal thin film design in order to achieve a high Seebeck coefficient with the value of 252 μV/k on a relatively low temperature scale. Polymer film thickness was varied in order to investigate its influence on the Seebeck effect. The high Seebeck coefficient indicates that the metal/polymer/metal design can develop a large entropy difference in internal energy of charge carriers between high and low-temperature metal electrodes to develop electrical potential due to charge transport in conducting polymer film through metal/polymer interface. Therefore, the metal/polymer/metal structure presents a new design to combine inorganic metals and organic polymers in thin-film form to develop Seebeck devices.