Confined phonons effects, phonon-carrier interactions and thermal transport in graphene-based structures

Recently graphene has been studied in view of its promise as a material for high-performance electronics. In order to advance the basic understanding of graphene and graphite for graphene-based devices it is necessary to study the phonon modes in these materials as well as their interactions with charge carriers. Moreover, it is necessary to understand the phonon-based thermal properties of these structures; herein, the thermal conductivity is modeled for selected graphene-based structures of finite size. In addition, phonon engineering in finite-sized graphene-based structures will be considered. Models of confined phonon modes will be presented for finite-sized graphene structures. Additionally, the role of phonon confinement in carrier-phonon interactions will be considered in confined phonons in graphene sheets of finite size. As indicated previously, quantum confinement effects are included [1,2] by using previous models for graphene-based structures [3–12]. This presentation will place special emphasis on the deformation potential interaction between confined LO-phonon modes and charge carriers in finite-sized graphene structures of potential interest in nanoscale devices.