Potential 2D thermoelectric material ATeI (A = Sb and Bi) monolayers from a first-principles study

Lots of two-dimensional (2D) materials have been predicted theoretically and further confirmed in experiments, and have wide applications in nanoscale electronic, optoelectronic and thermoelectric devices. In this work, the thermoelectric properties of ATeI (A = Sb and Bi) monolayers are systematically investigated according to semiclassical Boltzmann transport theory. It is found that spin-orbit coupling (SOC) has an important effect on the electronic transport coefficients of p-type doping, but a negative influence on n-type doping. The room-temperature sheet thermal conductance is 14.2 W K-1 for SbTeI and 12.6 W K-1 for BiTeI, which is lower than that of most well-known 2D materials, such as the transition-metal dichalcogenide, group IV-VI, group VA and group IV monolayers. The very low sheet thermal conductance of ATeI (A = Sb and Bi) monolayers is mainly due to their small group velocities and short phonon lifetimes. The strongly polarized covalent bonds between A and Te or I atoms induce strong phonon anharmonicity, which gives rise to low lattice thermal conductivity. It is found that the high-frequency optical branches contribute significantly to the total thermal conductivity, which is obviously different from the usual picture, where there is little contribution from the optical branches. According to cumulative lattice thermal conductivity with respect to the phonon mean free path (MFP), it is difficult to further reduce the lattice thermal conductivity using nanostructures. Finally, the possible thermoelectric figure of merit ZT values of the ATeI (A = Sb and Bi) monolayers are calculated. It is found that p-type doping has much better thermoelectric properties than n-type doping. At room temperature, the peak ZT can reach 1.11 for SbTeI and 0.87 for BiTeI, respectively. These results make us believe that ATeI (A = Sb and Bi) monolayers may be potential 2D thermoelectric materials, which could stimulate further experimental work towards the synthesis of these monolayers.