Intrinsic anisotropy of thermal conductance in graphene nanoribbons

Thermal conductance of graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) with the width varying from 0.5 to 35 nm is systematically investigated using nonequilibrium Green's function method. Anisotropic thermal conductance is observed with the room temperature thermal conductance of zigzag GNRs up to similar to 30% larger than that of armchair GNRs. At room temperature, the anisotropy is found to disappear when the width is larger than 100 nm. This intrinsic anisotropy originate from different boundary condition at ribbon edges, and can be used to tune thermal conductance, which have important implications for the applications of GNRs in nanoelectronics and thermoelectricity. (C) 2009 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3272678]