Quasi-one-dimensional thermal transport in trigonal selenium crystal

Hua Peng; Dong Hou; Gang Chen

doi:10.1088/1361-648X/ac1d15

Quasi-one-dimensional thermal transport in trigonal selenium crystal

J Phys Condens Matter. 2021 Aug 30;33(45). doi: 10.1088/1361-648X/ac1d15.

Authors

Hua Peng¹, Dong Hou¹, Gang Chen^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ School of Physics and Technology, University of Jinan, Jinan 250022, People's Republic of China.
² School of Physics and Electronics, Shandong Normal University, Shandong 250358, People's Republic of China.

PMID: 34384051
DOI: 10.1088/1361-648X/ac1d15

Abstract

The lattice thermal conductivity in van der Waals crystal selenium is investigated by solving the phonon Boltzmann transport equation combined with the first-principles calculations. The lattice thermal conductivity of selenium along the perpendicular to the chain direction is extremely low, which is 5 times lower than the conductivity in the parallel direction, showing a clear quasi-one-dimensional heat transfer feature. The small phonon group velocity, acoustic-optical phonon branches mixing and bonding anharmonicity along the perpendicular to the chain direction contribute to the high anisotropy in thermal conductivity. Moreover, particles with several nanometers can introduce boundary scattering to a large portion of phonons modes in selenium, where the lattice thermal conductivity is greatly reduced. Both the unique one-dimensional thermal transport property and low thermal conductivity make selenium to be a potential thermal management in thermoelectric and other electronic technologies.

Keywords: phonons; selenium; thermal transport.