The work published in Advanced Energy Materials shows a deep understanding on design rules for high thermoelectric properties.
Zapata et. al. studied the thermoelectric properties of the host workhorse PBTTT polymer when blended with different guests with variing thickness and composition. On that variety of samples and conditions, spectroscopic analysis of the charge-transfer species, structural characterization using grazing-incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering, differential scanning calorimetry, Raman, and atomic force microscopy, and Monte Carlo simulations are employed to explain and understand the five fold increase seen in some conditions compared with the neat material.
The article has been published in open acces and can be found HERE.