Thermal and electrical cross-plane conductivity at the nanoscale in poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):trifuoromethanesulfonate thin films

TL;DR

This study investigates the nanoscale cross-plane electrical and thermal conductivities of PEDOT:OTf thin films, revealing the presence of highly conductive nano-domains and a significant electronic contribution to thermal transport, with implications for organic electronics.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed correlation between electrical and thermal conductivities in PEDOT:OTf thin films, including measurements of vibrational and electronic contributions at the nanoscale.

Findings

Vibrational thermal conductivity of 0.34 W/m·K.

Electronic contribution to thermal conductivity is significant.

Lorenz number is six times larger than the classical value.

Abstract

Cross-plane electrical and thermal transport in thin films of a conducting polymer (poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene), PEDOT) stabilized with trifluoromethanesulfonate (OTf) is investigated in this study. We explore their electrical properties by conductive atomic force microscopy (C-AFM), which reveals the presence of highly conductive nano-domains. Thermal conductivity in cross-plane direction is measured with Null-Point scanning thermal microscopy (NP-SThM): PEDOT:OTf indeed demonstrates non-negligible electronic contribution to the thermal transport. We further investigate the correlation between electrical and thermal conductivity by applying posttreatment: chemical reduction (de-doping) for the purpose of lowering charge carrier concentration and hence, electrical conductivity and acid treatment (over-doping) to increase the latter. From our measurements, we find a vibrational thermal conductivity of 0.34 (+/- 0.04) Wm-1 K-1. From the linear dependence or the electronic contribution of thermal conductivity vs. the electronic conductivity (Widemann-Franz law), we infer a Lorenz number 6 times larger than the classical Sommerfeld value as also observed in many organic materials for in-plane thermal transport. Applying the recently proposed molecular Widemann-Franz law, we deduced a reorganization energy of 0.53 (+/- 0.06) eV.