Enhanced Seebeck effect in graphene devices by strain and doping engineering

• Investigate electronic transport and thermoeletric effects in graphene devices by tight binding calculations.
• Propose to use strain and doping engineering to enlarge energy gap and Seebeck effect.
• Seebeck coefficient can reach a value higher than 1.4 mV/K.

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 hundred 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.