Graphene device: transverse thermoelectric effect at room temperature

A team from Shandong University, Southern University of Science and Technology (Shenzhen) and the University of Manchester, with colleagues from the University of Jinan and Kashi University, has reported a submicron graphene device with a transverse thermoelectric response at room temperature and zero magnetic field. The paper was published in Nature Communications on 3 November 2026 doi.org. The authors call the effect the ballistic transverse thermoelectric effect (BTTE) doi.org.

Non-uniform heat flux as the problem

According to the paper, thermal management in highly integrated chips and wearable devices is constrained by non-uniform heat flux distributions. These resist both precise sensing and efficient energy recovery at the nanoscale doi.org. In the transverse thermoelectric effect (TTE), the temperature gradient and the resulting thermoelectric voltage are spatially decoupled. The authors describe this geometry as compatible with on-chip heat sensing and harvesting doi.org.

The authors state that earlier implementations of TTE required strong external magnetic fields or temperatures below that of liquid nitrogen doi.org. The graphene device described in the paper operates without either condition: at room temperature and with no applied magnetic field doi.org.

Mechanism and measured values

The authors attribute the effect to asymmetric scattering of ballistic carriers in the submicron structure doi.org. The device reaches a transverse Seebeck coefficient of 27.9 μV K−1 doi.org. Its transverse thermoelectric power factor is about 35.8 μW cm−1K−2 doi.org.

The transverse voltage keeps its polarity when the temperature gradient is reversed doi.org. According to the authors, this allows nanoscale heat-flow sensing and energy harvesting under spatially varying thermal conditions doi.org.

The work is a device-level demonstration in graphene. The paper describes no integration of the effect into chips or wearable products. Correspondence is listed to Zihao Zhang, Tao He, Yuxiang Li, Aimin Song and Jiawei Zhang. The authors declare no competing interests, and the article is available in open access.

Shandong University graphene device shows 27.9 μV/K transverse Seebeck effect at room temperature

Non-uniform heat flux as the problem

Mechanism and measured values

Sources · 1

Read also

In APP/PS1 mice, alcohol increases hepatocyte vesicle release and miR-122-5p is detected in the brain