Theromelectricity in Graphene: Effects of a gap and magnetic fields

TL;DR

This paper models the thermopower of monolayer graphene under various conditions, revealing how a gap and magnetic fields influence thermoelectric properties, with predictions applicable to experimental setups.

Contribution

It provides an exact calculation of thermopower in graphene considering a gap, magnetic fields, and phonon scattering, offering new insights into thermoelectric behavior.

Findings

Thermopower can be linear in the induced gap.

Peak thermopower occurs at the same chemical potential regardless of the gap.

Thermopower saturates at high magnetic fields, independent of scattering details.

Abstract

We calculate the thermopower of monolayer graphene in various circumstances. First we show that experiments on the thermopower of graphene can be understood quantitatively with a very simple model of screening in the semiclassical limit. We can calculate the energy dependent scattering time for this model exactly. We then consider acoustic phonon scattering which might be the operative scattering mechanism in free standing films, and predict that the thermopower will be linear in any induced gap in the system. Further, the thermopower peaks at the same value of chemical potential (tunable by gate voltage) independent of the gap. Finally, we show that in the semiclassical approximation, the thermopower in a magnetic field saturates at high field to a value which can be calculated exactly and is independent of the details of the scattering. This effect might be observable experimentally.