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.