Theoretical Study of Effect of Pore Morphology on the Thermoelectric Performance of Armchair Silicene Nanoribbons

The thermoelectric properties of armchair silicene nanoribbons embedded with pores of varying morphology are studied using atomistic simulation of electron and phonon transport. The results show that the phonon thermal transport is significantly reduced by the introduction of nanopores. Although the Seebeck coefficient exhibits an oscillating behavior with the pore size, the improved values of conductance are able to improve the power factor substantially which leads to enhancement of thermoelectric performance. Moreover, it is observed that the enhancement of thermoelectric figure of merit can be effectively tuned by the optimum choice of pore shape which is found to be dependent upon the pore dimension. In addition, the effect of variation in temperature on the thermoelectric performance has been studied.