Engineering Enhanced Thermoelectric Properties in Zigzag Graphene Nanoribbons
arXiv:1203.2032 · doi:10.1063/1.3688034
Abstract
We theoretically investigate the thermoelectric properties of zigzag graphene nanoribbons in the presence of extended line defects, substrate impurities and edge roughness along the nanoribbon's length. A nearest-neighbor tight-binding model for the electronic structure and a fourth nearest- neighbor force constant model for the phonon bandstructure are used. For transport we employ quantum mechanical non-equilibrium Green's function simulations. Starting from the pristine zigzag nanoribbon structure that exhibits very poor thermoelectric performance, we demonstrate how after a series of engineering design steps the performance can be largely enhanced. Our results could be useful in the design of highly efficient nanostructured graphene nanoribbon based thermoelectric devices.
27 pages, 11 figures
References in corpus (6)
- Electric Field Effect in Atomically Thin Carbon Films
- Energy Band Gap Engineering of Graphene Nanoribbons
- Intrinsic and Extrinsic Performance Limits of Graphene Devices on SiO2
- Disorder Induced Localized States in Graphene
- Effects of Confinement and Orientation on the Thermoelectric Power Factor of Silicon Nanowires
- Study of Thermal Properties of Graphene-Based Structures Using the Force Constant Method