Organic thermoelectric (OTE) materials have gained widespread attention because of their potential for wearable power generators and solid cooling elements. Nevertheless, the development of state-of-the-art OTE materials still suffers from limited molecular categories because of the rarity of molecular design strategies, which limits further development of this emerging field. Recently, many efforts have been devoted to developing molecular design concepts for high performance OTE materials. In this mini review, we present the fundamentals of the thermoelectric (TE) effect and the basic guidelines for designing OTE materials based on doped semiconductors. Subsequently, we provide an overview of the molecular design of conjugated backbones and side chains for enabling efficient TE conversion, including the effects of the molecular framework, heteroatomic substitution, and side chain length and polarity. Finally, we emphasize the developing tendency of molecular engineering towards high-performance and multifunctional OTE materials.

有机热电 (OTE) 材料因其在可穿戴发电机和固体冷却元件方面的潜力而受到广泛关注。然而，由于分子设计策略的稀有性，最先进的 OTE 材料的发展仍然受到分子类别的限制，这限制了这一新兴领域的进一步发展。最近，许多努力致力于开发高性能 OTE 材料的分子设计概念。在这篇简短的评论中，我们介绍了热电 (TE) 效应的基本原理以及设计基于掺杂半导体的 OTE 材料的基本指南。随后，我们概述了共轭骨架和侧链的分子设计，以实现有效的 TE 转换，包括分子框架的影响，杂原子取代、侧链长度和极性。最后，我们强调了分子工程向高性能和多功能 OTE 材料的发展趋势。