Vacancy-induced enhancement of thermal conductivity in graphene

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that low-density point defects in graphene can increase its Young's modulus, which in turn enhances its thermal conductivity across a broad temperature range by boosting phonon velocities.

Contribution

It reveals a novel mechanism where vacancy-induced stiffness improvement leads to thermal conductivity enhancement in graphene.

Findings

Young's modulus increases with low defect density.

Thermal conductivity is significantly enhanced due to higher phonon velocities.

The effect spans a wide temperature range.

Abstract

It is shown that the experimentally observed increase of the Young's modulus in single-layer graphene with low density of point defects leads to a noticeably enhancement of the thermal conductivity in a wide temperature range due to increasing the longitudinal and transverse phonon velocities.