Study for thermoelectric performance enhancement of group IVB (C, Si, Ge, Sn,Pb)-VB (P, As, Sb, Bi) monolayers

Abstract

In this paper, we first sort out two-dimensional honeycomb-like monolayers composed of group IVB (Si, Ge, Sn, Pb) and VB (As, Sb) into the semiconductor and metal. We obtain the result that all possible 10 systems composed of Si, Ge and As, Sb are semiconductors. The thermoelectric properties of the 10 systems are investigated by the first principle method. The computations show that the thermoelectric powers and electronic dimensionless figure-of-merits of the considering systems are not different too much. As a result, we conclude that the good thermoelectric material could be obtained if the compound is made from only Si, Ge and As, Sb, when we wish to make the thermoelectric material of two-dimensional honeycomb-like monolayers composed of group IVB (C, Si, Ge, Sn, Pb) and VB (P, As, Sb, Bi).