Thermal Transport of Novel Two-dimensional Silicon

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Ming Hu
• Subject Area: Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics ; Thermodynamics and Kinetics as well as Properties of Phases and Microstructure of Materials
• Term: from 2015 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 267464562

• Final Report Year: 2019

Final Report Abstract

Silicene, the Si counterpart of graphene, has received intense research interest lately. Given the fact that thermal transport plays a critical role in many applications such as heat dissipation in nanoelectronics and thermoelectric energy conversion, there has been an emerging demand in characterizing thermal (mainly phonons) transport property of silicene structures. Moreover, silicene exhibits a few novel thermal transport properties, which are fundamentally different from that of graphene, despite the similarity of their honeycomb lattice structure. Therefore, the abnormal physical property, primarily stemming from its unique low buckling structure, may enable silicene to open up entirely new possibilities for revolutionary electronic devices and energy conversion materials. With this state of the art, in this project we performed theoretical investigations of thermal transport of silicene nanostructures in various forms. Heat transfer in such structures is not only directly relevant to optimizing the relevant device performance such as improved thermal management for nanoelectronics and thermoelectric energy conversion efficiency, but also is a scientifically fundamental problem for many other similar two-dimensional systems. The research effort conducted in this project provide a major advancement to the fundamental understanding of thermal transport mechanism of silicene and more broadly two-dimensional materials, with the potential to make a clear contribution to development of high performance nanoelectronics and the energy needs of the future.

Publications

• “Bilateral Substrate Effect on the Thermal Conductivity of Two-dimensional Silicon”, Nanoscale, 7, 6014 (2015)
  Zhang, Xiaoliang; Bao, Hua & Hu, Ming
  
• “Large Tunability of Lattice Thermal Conductivity of Monolayer Silicene via Mechanical Strain”, Physical Review B, 93, 075404 (2016)
  Xie, Han; Ouyang, Tao; Germaneau, Éric; Qin, Guangzhao; Hu, Ming & Bao, Hua
  
• “Resonant Bonding Driven Giant Phonon Anharmonicity and Low Thermal Conductivity of Phosphorene”, Physical Review B, 94, 165445 (2016)
  Qin, Guangzhao; Zhang, Xiaoliang; Yue, Sheng-Ying; Qin, Zhenzhen; Wang, Huimin; Han, Yang & Hu, Ming
  
• “Anomalously Temperature-dependent Thermal Conductivity of Monolayer GaN with Large Deviations from the Traditional 1/T Law”, Physical Review B, 95, 195416 (2017)
  Qin, Guangzhao; Qin, Zhenzhen; Wang, Huimin & Hu, Ming
  
• “External Electric Field Driving Ultra-low Thermal Conductivity of Silicene”, Nanoscale, 9, 7227 (2017)
  Qin, Guangzhao; Qin, Zhenzhen; Yue, Sheng-Ying; Yan, Qing-Bo & Hu, Ming
  
• “Orbitally Driven Low Thermal Conductivity of Monolayer Gallium Nitride (GaN) with Planar Honeycomb Structure: a Comparative Study”, Nanoscale, 9, 4295 (2017)
  Qin, Zhenzhen; Qin, Guangzhao; Zuo, Xu; Xiong, Zhihua & Hu, Ming
  
• "Lone-Pair Electrons Induced Anomalous Enhancement of Thermal Transport in Strained Planar Two-Dimensional Materials", Nano Energy, 50, 425 (2018)
  Qin, Guangzhao; Qin, Zhenzhen; Wang, Huimin & Hu, Ming
  
• "Thermal Transport in Phosphorene", Small, 14, 1702465 (2018)
  Qin, Guangzhao & Hu, Ming
  
• “Lone-pair Electrons do not Necessarily Lead to Low Lattice Thermal Conductivity: an Exception of Two-dimensional Penta-CN2”, Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, 9, 2474 (2018)
  Wang, Huimin; Qin, Guangzhao; Qin, Zhenzhen; Li, Guojian; Wang, Qiang & Hu, Ming