Impact of electron-electron interactions on the thermoelectric efficiency of graphene quantum point contacts
arXiv:2203.02232 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.106.045129
Abstract
Thermoelectric materials open a way to harness dissipated energy and make electronic devices less energy-demanding. Heat-to-electricity conversion requires materials with a strongly suppressed thermal conductivity but still high electronic conduction. This goal is largely achieved with the help of nanostructured materials, even if the bulk counterpart is not highly efficient. In this work, we investigate how thermoelectric efficiency is enhanced by many-body effects in graphene nanoribbons at low temperature. To this end, starting from the Kane-Mele-Hubbard model within a mean-field approximation, we carry out an extensive numerical study of the impact of electron-electron interactions on the thermoelectric efficiency of graphene nanoribbons with armchair or zigzag edges. We consider two different regimes, namely trivial and topological insulator. We find that electron-electron interactions are crucial for the appearance of interference phenomena that give rise to an enhancement of the thermoelectric efficiency of the nanoribbons. Lastly, we also propose an experimental setup that would help to test the validity of our conclusions.
arXiv comment11 pages, 10 figures
References in corpus (23)
- Electric Field Effect in Atomically Thin Carbon Films
- The electronic properties of graphene
- Topological Order and the Quantum Spin Hall Effect
- Quantum Spin Hall Insulator State in HgTe Quantum Wells
- Kwant: a software package for quantum transport
- Observation of the Quantum Spin Hall Effect up to 100 Kelvin in a Monolayer Crystal
- Tunable symmetry breaking and helical edge transport in a graphene quantum spin Hall state
- Topological Insulators and Mott Physics from the Hubbard Interaction
- Increasing thermoelectric performance using coherent transport
- Coherent transport in graphene nanoconstrictions
- Magnetism of Finite Graphene Samples: Mean-Field Theory compared with Exact Diagonalization and Quantum Monte Carlo Simulation
- Spatial distribution of local currents of massless Dirac fermions in quantum transport through graphene nanoribbons
- Edge currents and nanopore arrays in zigzag and chiral graphene nanoribbons as a route toward high- thermoelectrics
- Control of electron-electron interaction in graphene by proximity screening
- Failure of conductance quantization in two-dimensional topological insulators due to non-magnetic impurities
- Enhancement of thermoelectric efficiency and violation of the Wiedemann-Franz law due to Fano effect
- Edge states in graphene-like systems
- Enhancing thermoelectric properties of graphene quantum rings
- Impact of Fano and Breit-Wigner resonances in the thermoelectric properties of nanoscale junctions
- Tunable resonances due to vacancies in graphene nanoribbons
- Quantum nanoconstrictions fabricated by cryo-etching in encapsulated graphene
- Spin and charge caloritronics in bilayer graphene flakes with magnetic contacts
- Enhancement of thermoelectric figure of merit in zigzag graphene nanoribbons with periodic edge vacancies