Two orders of magnitude suppression of graphene's thermal conductivity by heavy dopant (Si)

The in-plane thermal conductivity (k_SiG) of silicon-doped graphene (SiG) was greatly suppressed primarily due to increased phonon scattering associated with the large mass difference of Si from its host C atoms. For SiG as supported on an 8 nm-thick SiO₂ substrate, the measured k_SiG represents progressive decrease and saturation with the increase of Si dopants concentration, showing more than an order-of-magnitude reduction from that of supported pristine graphene (PG) and nearly two order-of-magnitude reductions when compared with suspended PG at about 2% doping concentration. The enhanced graphene-substrate conformity through thermal annealing in a vacuum additionally lowers k_SiG from that of ambient annealing. The substitutional Si dopants tend to suppress the contribution of temperature-sensitive phonons with long mean free paths and weaken the temperature dependence of k_SiG. The presence of Si dopants seems to allow for faster attainment of thermal equilibrium between different heat carriers due to the reduced phonon mean free paths. We believe that SiG holds the possibility of exclusively controlling the thermal properties of graphene, since the substitutional dopants do not violently destruct the hexagonal lattice structure of graphene and may possibly have minimal effects on graphene's electrical properties.