Enhanced Seebeck effect in graphene devices by strain and doping engineering

Abstract: In this work, we investigate the possibility of enhancing the thermoelectric power (Seebeck coefficient) in graphene devices by strain and doping engineering. While a local strain can result in the misalignment of Dirac cones of different graphene sections in the k-space, doping engineering leads to their displacement in energy. By combining these two effects, we demonstrate that a conduction gap as large as a few hundreds meV can be achieved and hence the enhanced Seebeck coefficient can reach a value higher than 1.4 mV/K in graphene doped heterojunctions with a locally strained area. Such hetero-channels appear to be very promising for enlarging the applications of graphene devices as in strain and thermal sensors.