Tuning the thermal conductivity of silicene with tensile strain and isotopic doping: A molecular dynamics study

Abstract

Silicene is a monolayer of silicon atoms arranged in honeycomb lattice similar to graphene. We study the thermal transport in silicene by using non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations. We focus on the effects of tensile strain and isotopic doping on the thermal conductivity, in order to tune the thermal conductivity of silicene. We find that the thermal conductivity of silicene, which is shown to be only about 20% of that of bulk silicon, increases at small tensile strains but decreases at large strains. We also find that isotopic doping of silicene results in a U-shaped change of the thermal conductivity for the isotope concentration varying from 0% to 100%. We further show that ordered doping (isotope superlattice) leads to a much larger reduction in thermal conductivity than random doping. Our findings are important for the thermal management in silicene-based electronic devices and for thermoelectric applications of silicene.