A novel n-dopant, 10-(1,3-dimethyl-2,3-dihydro-1H-benzo[d]imidazol-2-yl)-2,3,6,7-tetrahydro-1H,5H-pyrido[3,2,1-ij]thieno[2,3-f]quinoline (ThJLBI), was developed from the benchmark n-dopant of N-DMBI with benzimidazoline backbone, by switching its electron-donating dimethylaniline group to thienojulolidine. Encouragingly, an improved thermoelectric performance over N-DMBI was achieved when doping the representative n-type polymer ThDPP-CNBTz, with a maximum electrical conductivity of 35.4 S·cm−1 and a power factor of 34.17 µW·m−1·K−2 at the optimized doping concentrations of 40mol%. This work enriches the library of current n-dopants, which can provide the room for developing high-performance n-type polymeric thermoelectrics.
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