Effect of grain boundaries on thermal transport in graphene

AY Serov and ZY Ong and E Pop, APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS, 102, 033104 (2013).

DOI: 10.1063/1.4776667

We investigate the influence of grain boundaries (GBs), line defects (LDs), and chirality on thermal transport in graphene using non- equilibrium Green's functions. At room temperature, the ballistic thermal conductance is similar to 4.2GW m(-2) K-1, and single GBs or LDs yield transmission from 50% to 80% of this value. LDs with carbon atom octagon defects have lower thermal transmission than that of GBs with pentagon and heptagon defects. We apply our findings to study the thermal conductivity of polycrystalline graphene for practical applications, and find that the type and size of GBs play an important role when grain sizes are smaller than a few hundred nanometers. (C) 2013 American Institute of Physics. http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4776667

Return to Publications page