Strong Antibonding I (p)–Cu (d) States Lead to Intrinsically Low Thermal Conductivity in CuBiI₄

Abstract

Chemical bonding present in crystalline solids has a significant impact on how heat moves through a lattice, and with the right chemical tuning, one can achieve extremely low thermal conductivity. The desire for intrinsically low lattice thermal conductivity (κ_lat) has gained widespread attention in thermoelectrics, in refractories, and nowadays in photovoltaics and optoelectronics. Here we have synthesized a high-quality crystalline ingot of cubic metal halide CuBiI₄ and explored its chemical bonding and thermal transport properties. It exhibits an intrinsically ultralow κ_lat of ∼0.34-0.28 W m^-1 K^-1 in the temperature range 4-423 K with an Umklapp crystalline peak of 1.82 W m^-1 K^-1 at 20 K, which is surprisingly lower than other copper-based halide or chalcogenide materials. The crystal orbital Hamilton population analysis shows that antibonding states generated just below the Fermi level (<i>E</i>_f), which arise from robust copper 3d and iodine 5p interactions, cause copper-iodide bond weakening, which leads to reduction of the elastic moduli and softens the lattice, finally to produce extremely low κ_lat in CuBiI₄. The chemical bonding hierarchy with mixed covalent and ionic interactions present in the complex crystal structure generates significant lattice anharmonicity and a low participation ratio in low-lying optical phonon modes originating mostly from localized copper-iodide bond vibrations. We have obtained experimental evidence of these low-lying modes by low-temperature specific heat capacity measurement as well as Raman spectroscopy. The presence of strong p<i>-</i>d antibonding interactions between copper and iodine leads to anharmonic soft crystal lattice which gives rise to low-energy localized optical phonon bands, suppressing the heat-carrying acoustic phonons to steer intrinsically ultralow κ_lat in CuBiI₄.