Relaxation of Optically Excited Carriers in Graphene

We explore the relaxation of photo-excited graphene by solving a transient Boltzmann transport equation with electron-phonon (e-ph) and electron-electron (e-e) scattering. Simulations show that when the excited carriers are relaxed by e-ph scattering only, a population inversion can be achieved at energies determined by the photon energy. However, e-e scattering quickly thermalizes the carrier energy distributions washing out the negative optical conductivity peaks. The relaxation rates and carrier multiplication effects are presented as a function of photon energy and dielectric constant.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

On momentum conservation and thermionic emission cooling

The question of whether relaxing momentum conservation can increase the performance of thermionic cooling device is examined. Both homojunctions and heterojunctions are considered. It is shown that for many cases, a non-conserved lateral momentum model overestimates the current. For the case of heterojunctions with a much heavier effective mass in the barrier and with a low barrier height, however, non-conservation of lateral momentum may increase the current. These results may be simply understood from the general principle that the current is limited by the location, well or barrier, with the smallest number of conducting channels. These results also show that within thermionic emission framework, the possibilities of increasing thermionic cooling by relaxing momentum conservation are limited. More generally, however, when the connection to the source is weak or in the presence of scattering, the situation may be different. Issues that deserve further study are identified.Comment: 36 pages, 1 table, 9 figure

Cooling of photoexcited carriers in graphene by internal and substrate phonons

We investigate the energy relaxation of hot carriers produced by photoexcitation of graphene through coupling to both intrinsic and remote (substrate) surface polar phonons using the Boltzmann equation approach. We find that the energy relaxation of hot photocarriers in graphene on commonly used polar substrates, under most conditions, is dominated by remote surface polar phonons. We also calculate key characteristics of the energy relaxation process, such as the transient cooling time and steady state carrier temperatures and photocarriers densities, which determine the thermoelectric and photovoltaic photoresponse, respectively. Substrate engineering can be a promising route to efficient optoelectronic devices driven by hot carrier dynamics.Comment: related papers at http://tonylow.info

Influence of Dimensionality on Thermoelectric Device Performance

The role of dimensionality on the electronic performance of thermoelectric devices is clarified using the Landauer formalism, which shows that the thermoelectric coefficients are related to the transmission, T(E), and how the conducing channels, M(E), are distributed in energy. The Landauer formalism applies from the ballistic to diffusive limits and provides a clear way to compare performance in different dimensions. It also provides a physical interpretation of the "transport distribution," a quantity that arises in the Boltzmann transport equation approach. Quantitative comparison of thermoelectric coefficients in one, two, and three dimension shows that the channels may be utilized more effectively in lower-dimensions. To realize the advantage of lower dimensionality, however, the packing density must be very high, so the thicknesses of the quantum wells or wires must be small. The potential benefits of engineering M(E) into a delta-function are also investigated. When compared to a bulk semiconductor, we find the potential for ~50 % improvement in performance. The shape of M(E) improves as dimensionality decreases, but lower dimensionality itself does not guarantee better performance because it is controlled by both the shape and the magnitude of M(E). The benefits of engineering the shape of M(E) appear to be modest, but approaches to increase the magnitude of M(E) could pay large dividends.Comment: 23 pages, 5 figure

On the Best Bandstructure for Thermoelectric Performance

The conventional understanding that a bandstructure that produces a Dirac delta function transport distribution (or transmission in the Landauer framework) maximizes the thermoelectric figure of merit, ZT, is revisited. Thermoelectric (TE) performance is evaluated using a simple tight binding (TB) model for electron dispersion and three different scattering models: 1) a constant scattering time, 2) a constant mean-free-path, and 3) a scattering rate proportional to the density-of-states. We found that a Dirac delta-function transmission never produces the maximum ZT. The best bandstructure for maximizing ZT depends on the scattering physics. These results demonstrate that the selection of bandstructure to maximize TE performance is more complex than previously thought and that a high density-of-states near the band edge does not necessarily improve TE performance

Spin Torque Generated by Valley Hall Effect in WSe2

Monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides are promising materials for spintronics due to their robust spin-valley locked valence states, enabling efficient charge-to-spin conversion via valley Hall effect with non-equilibrium spins possessing long spin diffusion lengths of hundreds of nanometers. In this work, we show that the injection of a pure valley current, induced by valley Hall effect in a WSe2 monolayer, imparts a spin torque on the magnetization of an overlaid Fe or CoFe in a tunneling structure. The torque efficiency is found to be comparable to that in conventional perpendicular magnetic tunnel junctions and can be further optimized with valley Hall angle in WSe2. The valley nature of the spin torque gives rise to out-of-plane damping-like torques in a current-in-plane configuration, vanishing charge transport perpendicular-to-the-plane as well as torque efficiency tunable through gating

On Landauer vs. Boltzmann and Full Band vs. Effective Mass Evaluation of Thermoelectric Transport Coefficients

The Landauer approach to diffusive transport is mathematically related to the solution of the Boltzmann transport equation, and expressions for the thermoelectric parameters in both formalisms are presented. Quantum mechanical and semiclassical techniques to obtain from a full description of the bandstructure, E(k), the number of conducting channels in the Landauer approach or the transport distribution in the Boltzmann solution are developed and compared. Thermoelectric transport coefficients are evaluated from an atomistic level, full band description of a crystal. Several example calculations for representative bulk materials are presented, and the full band results are related to the more common effective mass formalism. Finally, given a full E(k) for a crystal, a procedure to extract an accurate, effective mass level description is presented.Comment: 33 pages, 8 figure

Computational study of the Seebeck coefficient of one-dimensional composite nano-structures

The Seebeck coefficient (S) of composite nano-structures is theoretically explored within a self-consistent electro-thermal transport simulation framework using the non-equilibrium Green\u27s function method and a heat diffusion equation. Seebeck coefficients are determined using numerical techniques that mimic experimental measurements. Simulation results show that, without energy relaxing scattering, the overall S of a composite structure is determined by the highest barrier within the device. For a diffusive, composite structure with energy relaxation due to electron-phonon scattering, however, the measured S is an average of the position-dependent values with the weighting factor being the lattice temperature gradient. The results stress the importance of self-consistent solutions of phonon heat transport and the resulting lattice temperature distribution in understanding the thermoelectric properties of a composite structure. It is also clarified that the measured S of a composite structure reflects its power generation performance rather than its cooling performance. The results suggest that the lattice thermal conductivity within the composite structure might be engineered to improve the power factor over the bulk by avoiding the conventional trade-off between S and the electrical conductivity. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3619855