Thermoelectric Properties of Graphene Ribbons

Several theoretical and experimental studies have been recently concerned with electric and thermal transport in graphene layers and ribbons, where propagation of electrons [1] and phonons [2] seems to be dominated by a ballistic mechanism. Of particular interest in this context is the identification and characterization of thermoelectric effects [3], which represent a promising alternative for energy recovery in technological applications. In the present work, the effect of the electron- phonon interaction over a predominantly ballistic transport mechanism in graphene ribbons is studied in the context of thermoelectricity. Theoretical estimations of the thermopower S, and the corresponding figure of merit ZT, are presented for this system as a function of temperature. \\[4pt] [1] K. Saito, J. Nakamura, and A. Natori, ``Ballistic thermal conductance of a graphene sheet,'' Phys. Rev. B 76, 115409 (2007).\\[0pt] [2] E. Munoz, J. Lu, and B. I. Yakobson, ``Ballistic thermal conductance of graphene ribbons,'' Nano Lett. 10, 1652 (2010).\\[0pt] [3] Y. Ouyang and J. Guo, ``A theoretical study on thermoelectric properties of graphene nanoribbons,'' Appl. Phys. Lett. 94, 263107 (2009).