The electronic material graphene has attracted much attention for its unique physical properties such as, linear band structure, high electron mobility, and room temperature ballistic conduction. The possibilities for device applications utilizing graphene show great variety, from transistors for computing to chemical sensors. Yet, there are still several basic physical properties such as thermal conductivity that need to be determined accurately.
This work examines the thermal properties of graphene grown by the chemical vapor deposition technique. The thermoelectric power of graphene is studied in ambient and vacuum environments and is shown to be highly sensitive to surface charge doping. Exploiting this effect, we study the change in thermoelectric power due to introduction of gaseous species. The temperature dependent thermal conductivity of graphene is measured using a comparison method. We show that the major contribution to the thermal conductivity is the scattering of in-plane phonons.
Graphene also shows promise as an optoelectronic material. We probe the Landau level structure of graphene in high magnetic fields using a differential photoconductivity technique. Using this method we observed the lifting of spin and valley degeneracies of the lowest Landau level in graphene.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:GATECH/oai:smartech.gatech.edu:1853/42746 |
| Date | 24 August 2011 |
| Creators | Benjamin, Daniel |
| Publisher | Georgia Institute of Technology |
| Source Sets | Georgia Tech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
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