New-Era Polymer Thermoelectrics: Material Innovations, Doping Frontiers, Decoupling Strategies, and Unconventional Applications

Abstract

The field of polymer thermoelectrics has undergone transformative development in recent years, marked not only by addressing the conventional performance disparity between p-type and n-type polymers, but also by innovations in doping methodologies, new strategies for suppressing dopant-induced disorder, approaches for overcoming the inherent thermoelectric trade-off, and advancements in achieving better ambient and thermal stability, as well as their variety of new applications. Collectively, these pivotal advances have brought the field into a new era. This review focuses on the recent development of high-performance polymers that bridge the long-standing performance gap, introduces doping frontiers for more highly optimized thermoelectric properties, and discusses sophisticated strategies for decoupling electronic and thermal transport. Moreover, this work unlocks the emerging understanding of the degradation mechanisms of doped polymers that enables the design of materials with superior ambient and thermal robustness, and showcases the burgeoning applications of thermoelectric polymers in unconventional domains.