The defect location effect on thermal conductivity of graphene nanoribbons based on molecular dynamics

• We investigated defect location effect on thermal conductivity of graphene nanoribbon.
• We find the fantastic different levels of influence on thermal conductivity in horizontal and vertical directions.
• It implies the potential for design of a new rectification with superiority.

The defect location effect on thermal conductivity of single-layer graphene nanoribbons is investigated. The length and width of pristine graphene nanoribbons are 12.3 nm and 5.112 nm in this paper. The results show the defect location has different levels of influence on thermal conductivity in horizontal and vertical directions. In vertical direction, the change of thermal conductivity is smaller than that in horizontal direction. The thermal conductivity of graphene nanoribbons shows some nonlinearity such as periodic trend when changing the defect location. It implies the chirality of zigzag graphene nanoribbons. In addition, phonon spectrum of atoms on the sides of the model is calculated. The results suggest the effect is greatly influenced by boundary scattering.