Ultrathin carbon biphenylene network as an anisotropic thermoelectric material with high temperature stability under mechanical strain

Official URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.9.024003

Carbon biphenylene network (C-BPN), which is an ultrathin material consisting of carbon atoms arranged in square-hexagonal-octagonal (4-6-8) periodic rings, has intriguing properties for nano-scale device design due to its unique crystal structure. Here, using the Landauer formalism in combination with first-principles calculations, we show that C-BPN is a highly stable thermoelectric material at elevated temperatures under mechanical strain, where its thermoelectric efficiency can be anisotropically engineered. Transport calculations reveal that C-BPN's transmission spectrum has significant degrees of directional anisotropy and it undergoes a metal-insulator transition under strain, which leads to an increase in its Seebeck coefficient. C-BPN's lattice thermal conductance can be selectively tuned up to 35% bidirectionally at room temperature by strain engineering. Enhancement in its power factor and the suppression of its lattice thermal conductance improves the p-type figure of merit up to 0.31 and 0.46 at 300 and 500 K, respectively. Our findings reveal that C-BPN has high potency to be used in thermoelectric nanodevices with selective anisotropic properties at elevated temperatures.