The thermodynamics of electrons and the thermoelectric transport in epitaxial graphene on the size-quantized films

We investigated the thermodynamic parameters (chemical potential, heat capacity and thermodynamic potential) and a thermoelectric transport in an epitaxial graphene on the size-quantized metal and semiconductor films within the framework of simple analytical model. We considered limiting cases of high and low temperatures. We showed that the chemical potential of epitaxial graphene is smaller than the chemical potential of isolated graphene at the same carrier concentration. Conversely, the heat capacity of the epitaxial graphene is greater than the heat capacity of the isolated graphene. We investigated a conductivity and thermopower of the epitaxial graphene. We showed that in such system there are the kinks of conductivity and peaks of thermoelectric power. These peaks are several times greater than those of isolated graphene. We compared our system with cases of 2D and 3D substrates. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.