Abstract
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.
Original language | American English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1212-1220 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | ACS Energy Letters |
Volume | 1 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 9 Dec 2016 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2016 American Chemical Society.
NREL Publication Number
- NREL/JA-5900-66753
Keywords
- carbon nanotubes
- charge carrier transport
- thermoelectricity