Cross-plane Thermoelectric and Thermionic Transport across Au/h-BN/Graphene Heterostructures

Poudel, Nirakar; Liang, Shi -Jun; Choi, David; Hou, Bingya; Shen, Lang; Shi, Haotian; Ang, Lay Kee; Shi, Li; Cronin, Stephen

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-12704-w

Title: Cross-plane Thermoelectric and Thermionic Transport across Au/h-BN/Graphene Heterostructures

Journal Article · Thu Oct 26 00:00:00 EDT 2017 · Scientific Reports

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-12704-w· OSTI ID:1500109

Poudel, Nirakar ^[1]; Liang, Shi -Jun ^[2]; Choi, David ^[3]; Hou, Bingya ^[1]; Shen, Lang ^[1]; Shi, Haotian ^[1]; Ang, Lay Kee ^[2];

^[3]; Cronin, Stephen ^[1]

Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
Singapore Univ. of Technology and Design (SUTD) (Singapore)
Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX (United States)

Here, the thermoelectric voltage generated at an atomically abrupt interface has not been studied exclusively because of the lack of established measurement tools and techniques. Atomically thin 2D materials provide an excellent platform for studying the thermoelectric transport at these interfaces. Here, we report a novel technique and device structure to probe the thermoelectric transport across Au/h-BN/graphene heterostructures. An indium tin oxide (ITO) transparent electrical heater is patterned on top of this heterostructure, enabling Raman spectroscopy and thermometry to be obtained from the graphene top electrode in situ under device operating conditions. Here, an AC voltage V(ω) is applied to the ITO heater and the thermoelectric voltage across the Au/h-BN/graphene heterostructure is measured at 2ω using a lock-in amplifier. We report the Seebeck coefficient for our thermoelectric structure to be –215 μV/K. The Au/graphene/h-BN heterostructures enable us to explore thermoelectric and thermal transport on nanometer length scales in a regime of extremely short length scales. The thermoelectric voltage generated at the graphene/h-BN interface is due to thermionic emission rather than bulk diffusive transport. As such, this should be thought of as an interfacial Seebeck coefficient rather than a Seebeck coefficient of the constituent materials.

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Research Organization:: Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA (United States); Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE

Grant/Contract Number:: FG02-07ER46376; FG02-07ER46377

OSTI ID:: 1500109

Journal Information:: Scientific Reports, Vol. 7, Issue 1; ISSN 2045-2322

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 13 works

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