The energy-filtering effect has been widely employed to elucidate the enhanced thermoelectric properties of organic/inorganic hybrids. However, the traditional Mott criterion cannot identify the energy-filtering effect of organic/inorganic hybrids due to the limitations of the Hall effect measurement in determining their carrier concentration. In this work, a carrier concentration-independent strategy under the theoretical framework of the Kang–Snyder model is proposed and demonstrated using PANI/MWCNT composites. The result indicates that the energy-filtering effect is triggered on increasing the temperature to 220 K. The energy-filtering effect gives a symmetry-breaking characteristic to the density of states of the charge carriers and leads to a higher thermopower of PANI/MWCNT than that of each constituent. From a morphological perspective, a paracrystalline PANI layer with a thickness of 3 nm is spontaneously assembled on the MWCNT network and serves as a metallic percolation pathway for carriers, resulting in a 5.56-fold increase in conductivity. The cooperative 3D carrier transport mode, including the 1D metallic transport along the paracrystalline PANI and the 2D cross-interface energy-filtering transport, co-determines a 4-fold increase in the power factors of PANI/MWCNT at 300 K. This work provides a physical insight into the improvement of the thermoelectric performance of organic/inorganic hybrids via the energy-filtering effect.

中文翻译：

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有机/无机界面的跨界面能量过滤效应平衡了热电势和电导率之间的权衡

能量过滤效应已被广泛用于阐明有机/无机杂化物的增强热电性能。然而，由于霍尔效应测量在确定其载流子浓度方面的局限性，传统的 Mott 准则无法识别有机/无机杂化物的能量过滤效应。在这项工作中，在 Kang-Snyder 模型的理论框架下，提出并使用 PANI/MWCNT 复合材料证明了一种与载流子浓度无关的策略。结果表明，当温度升高到 220 K 时，会触发能量过滤效应。能量过滤效应使电荷载流子的态密度具有对称破缺特性，并导致 PANI/MWCNT 的热电势高于每个组成部分的。从形态学的角度来看，厚度为 3 nm 的准晶聚苯胺层自发组装在 MWCNT 网络上，作为载流子的金属渗透通道，导致电导率增加 5.56 倍。协同 3D 载流子传输模式，包括沿着准晶 PANI 的 1D 金属传输和 2D 跨界面能量过滤传输，共同决定了 PANI/MWCNT 在 300 K 时的功率因数增加了 4 倍。这项工作提供了对有机/无机杂化物热电性能改进的物理洞察通过能量过滤效应。