The rapid development in the synthesis and device fabrication of 2D materials provides new opportunities for their wide applications in a variety of fields including thermoelectric energy conversion, thermal management, and thermal logics. As one important research direction, the possibly poor thermoelectric performance of the pristine 2D materials can be dramatically improved with patterned nanostructures, stacking of different 2Ds to form layered heterostructures, and electrostatic gating allowing fine-tuning of the quasi Fermi-level. This article reviews the recent advancement in this direction, with emphasis on both fundamental understanding and practical problems.

WSe2 has demonstrated potential for applications in thermoelectric energy conversion. Optimization of such devices requires control over interfacial thermal and electrical transport properties. Ti, TiOx, and Ti/TiOx contacts to the MBE-grown WSe2 are characterized by XPS and transport measurements. The deposition of Ti is found to result in W-Se bond scission yielding metallic W and Ti-Se chemical states. The deposition of Ti on WSe2 in the presence of a partial pressure of O2, which yields a TiOx overlayer, results in the formation of substoichiometric WSex (x < 2) as well as WOx. The thermal boundary conductance at Ti/WSe2 contacts is found to be reduced for greater WSe2 film thickness or when Au/TiOx interface is present at the contact. Electrical resistance of Au/Ti contacts is found to be higher than that of Au/TiOx contacts with no significant difference in the Seebeck coefficient between the two types of contact structures. This report documents the first experimental study of Ti/WSe2 interface chemistry and thermoelectric properties.

We have used the vortex filament method to numerically investigate the interactions between pairs of quantized vortex rings that are initially traveling in the same direction but with their axes offset by a variable impact parameter. The interaction of two circular rings of comparable radii produce outcomes that can be categorized into four regimes, dependent only on the impact parameter; the two rings can either miss each other on the inside or outside, or they can reconnect leading to final states consisting of either one or two deformed rings. The fraction of of energy went into ring deformations and the transverse component of velocity of the rings are analyzed for each regime. We find that rings of very similar radius only reconnect for a very narrow range of the impact parameter, much smaller than would be expected from geometrical cross-section alone. In contrast, when the radii of the rings are very different, the range of impact parameters producing a reconnection is close to the geometrical value. A second type of interaction considered is the collision of circular rings with a highly deformed ring. This type of interaction appears to be a productive mechanism for creating small vortex rings. The simulations are discussed in the context of experiments on colliding vortex rings and quantum turbulence in superfluid helium in the zero temperature limit

Devices made from two-dimensional (2D) materials such as graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides exhibit remarkable electronic properties of interest to many subdisciplines of nanoscience. Owing to their 2D nature, their quality is highly susceptible to contamination and degradation when exposed to the ambient environment. Protecting the 2D layers by encapsulation between hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) layers significantly improves their quality. Locating these samples within the encapsulant and assessing their integrity prior to further processing then becomes challenging. Here we show that conductive scanning probe techniques such as electrostatic force and Kelvin force microscopy makes it possible to visualize the encapsulated layers, their charge environment and local defects including cracks and bubbles on the sub-micrometer scale. Our techniques are employed without requiring electrical contact to the embedded layer, providing valuable feedback on the device's local electronic quality prior to any device etching or electrode deposition. We show that these measurement modes, which are simple extensions of atomic force microscopy, are perfectly suited for imaging encapsulated conductors and their local charge environments. Supporting Information

No abstract

No abstract

This work combines the principles of the heat spreader method and the imaging capability of the thermoreflectance measurements to measure the in-plane thermal conductivity of thin films without the requirement of film suspension or multiple thermometer deposition. We refer to this hybrid technique as heat diffusion imaging. The thermoreflectance imaging system provides a temperature distribution map across the film surface. The in-plane thermal conductivity can be extracted from the temperature decay profile. By coupling the system with a cryostat, we were able to conduct measurements from 40 K to 400 K. Silicon thin film samples with and without periodic holes were measured and compared with in-plane time-domain thermoreflectance measurements and literature data as validation for heat diffusion imaging.

The discovery of two-dimensional (2D) ferromagnets and antiferromagnets with topologically nontrivial electronic band structures makes the study of the Nernst effect in 2D materials of great importance and interest. To measure the Nernst coefficient of 2D materials, the detection of the temperature gradient is crucial. Although the micro-fabricated metal wires provide a simple but accurate way for temperature detection, a linear-response assumption that the temperature gradient is a constant is still necessary and has been widely used to evaluate the temperature gradient. However, with the existence of substrates, this assumption cannot be precise. In this study, we clearly show that the temperature gradient strongly depends on the distance from the heater by both thermoelectric transport and thermoreflectance measurements. Fortunately, both measurements show that the temperature gradient can be well described by a linear function of the distance from the heater. This linearity is further confirmed by comparing the measured Nernst coefficient to the value calculated from the generalized Mott’s formula. Our results demonstrate a precise way to measure the Nernst coefficient of two-dimensional materials and would be helpful for future studies.