ArXiv · 2026
Simple synthesis of graphitic compounds, their high conductivity, and integrability with other materials motivate the effort toward graphite-based thermoelectric generators. At the same time, semimetallic nature of graphite and graphene results in nearly-zero thermopower due to electron-hole compensation. Here, we observe large transverse thermopower in chemically derived multilayer graphene films with strong fluctuations of thickness and carrier density at low magnetic fields B. Using the scanning laser-induced heating of macroscopic film, we find that transverse (Nernst) thermoelectric voltage becomes comparable to the longitudinal thermoelectric voltage at the metal-doped graphene contact at B^*≈4 mT and ambient conditions. Estimates of transverse thermopower S_xy based on the known laser-induced temperature show that it is as large as ∼ 10 μV/K at B^*, and raises in a sub-linear fashion to 250 μV/K at B≈315 mT, the maximum field we reach with centimeter-sized permanent magnet. Extra increase in thermoelectric signal is achieved upon voltage measurement at Hall probes when the dc field lines are co-directional with local Nernst current. Our results show the promise of large-scale multilayer graphene for thermoelectricity generation.
Try inveni