Penta-graphene Research Articles

Band gap engineering in penta-graphene by substitutional doping: first-principles calculations

Using density functional theory, we study the structure, electronic properties and partial charges of a new carbon allotrope—penta-graphene (PG)—substitutionally doped by Si, B and N. We found that the electronic bandgap of PG can be tuned down to 0.2 eV due to carbon substitutions. However, the value of the band gap depends on the type and location of the dopants. For example, the strongest reduction of the band gap is obtained for Si substitutions on the top (bottom) plane of PG, whereas the substitution in the middle plane of PG has a smaller effect on the band gap of the material. Surface termination with fluorine and hydroxyl groups results in an increase of the band gap together with considerable changes in electronic and atomic partial charge distribution in the system. Our findings, which are robust against the use of different exchange-correlation functionals, indicate the possibility of tuning the bandgap of the material to make it suitable for optoelectronic and photovoltaic applications.

Hydrogen adsorption on pristine, defected, and 3d-block transition metal-doped penta-graphene

The effects of different crystallographic defects and substitutional doping of 3d-block transition metals (Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu and Zn) on the electronic properties and hydrogen molecule (H2) interaction of penta-graphene (PG) were investigated using density functional theory calculations. Electronic properties of PG show strong dependence on PG's structural configuration and the type of metal dopants used. Doping PG with transition metals (TM) may be used to change PG from being a wide band gap semiconductor to a narrow band gap semiconductor or a semimetal. PG have H2 adsorption energies (Eads) that are superior to graphene, with Eads between −0.7 eV and −0.9 eV depending on the adsorption site. Transition metals act as proton rich dopant, and induced positive electrostatic potential in its adjacent regions. Thus, doping improve H-2 adsorption, especially when substituted on sp2 hybridized carbon site. The V-doped and Ti-doped sheets, with Eads of −0.351 eV and −0.319 eV, respectively, show the greatest potential for on-board reversible solid-state hydrogen molecule storage application.

Hydrogenation of Penta-Graphene Leads to Unexpected Large Improvement in Thermal Conductivity.

Penta-graphene (PG) has been identified as a novel two-dimensional (2D) material with an intrinsic bandgap, which makes it especially promising for electronics applications. In this work, we use first-principles lattice dynamics and iterative solution of the phonon Boltzmann transport equation (BTE) to determine the thermal conductivity of PG and its more stable derivative, hydrogenated penta-graphene (HPG). As a comparison, we also studied the effect of hydrogenation on graphene thermal conductivity. In contrast to hydrogenation of graphene, which leads to a dramatic decrease in thermal conductivity, HPG shows a notable increase in thermal conductivity, which is much higher than that of PG. Considering the necessity of using the same thickness when comparing thermal conductivity values of different 2D materials, hydrogenation leads to a 63% reduction in thermal conductivity for graphene, while it results in a 76% increase for PG. The high thermal conductivity of HPG makes it more thermally conductive than most other semiconducting 2D materials, such as the transition metal chalcogenides. Our detailed analyses show that the primary reason for the counterintuitive hydrogenation-induced thermal conductivity enhancement is the weaker bond anharmonicity in HPG than PG. This leads to weaker phonon scattering after hydrogenation, despite the increase in the phonon scattering phase space. The high thermal conductivity of HPG may inspire intensive research around HPG and other derivatives of PG as potential materials for future nanoelectronic devices. The fundamental physics understood from this study may open up a new strategy to engineer thermal transport properties of other 2D materials by controlling bond anharmonicity via functionalization.

Electronic and optical properties of novel carbon allotropes

The vibrational properties, electronic structures and optical properties of novel carbon allotropes, such as monolayer penta-graphene (PG), double-layer PG and T12-carbon, were studied by first-principles calculations. Results of phonon calculations demonstrate that these exotic carbon allotropes are dynamically stable. The bulk T12 phase is an indirect-gap semiconductor having a quasiparticle (QP) bandgap of ∼5.19 eV. When the bulk material transforms to a two-dimensional (2D) phase, the monolayer and double-layer PG become quasi-direct gap semiconductors with smaller QP bandgaps of ∼4.48 eV and ∼3.67 eV, respectively. Furthermore, the partial charge density analysis indicates that the 2D phases retain part of the electronic characteristics of the T12 phase. The linear photon energy-dependent dielectric functions and related optical properties including refractive index, extinction coefficient, absorption spectrum, reflectivity, and energy-loss spectrum were also computed and discussed. Additionally, the chemical stability of monolayer PG and the electronic and optical properties of double-side hydrogenated monolayer PG were also investigated. The results obtained from our calculations are beneficial to practical applications of these exotic carbon allotropes in optoelectronics and electronics.

A comparative density functional study on electrical properties of layered penta-graphene

We present a comparative study of the influence of the number of layers, the biaxial strain in the range of −3% to 3%, and the stacking misalignments on the electronic properties of a new 2D carbon allotrope, penta-graphene (PG), based on hybrid-functional method within the density functional theory (DFT). In comparison with local exchange-correlation approximation in the DFT, the hybrid-functional provides an accurate description on the degree of pz orbitals localization and bandgap. Importantly, the predicted bandgap of few-layer PG has a weak layer dependence. The bandgap of monolayer PG is 3.27 eV, approximately equal to those of GaN and ZnO; and the bandgap of few-layer PG decreases slowly with the number of layers (N) and converge to 2.57 eV when N ≥ 4. Our calculations using HSE06 functional on few-layer PG reveal that bandgap engineering by stacking misalignment can further tune the bandgap down to 1.37 eV. Importantly, there is no direct-to-indirect bandgap transition in PG by varying strain, layer number, and stacking misalignment. Owing to its tunable, robustly direct, and wide bandgap characteristics, few-layer PG is promising for optoelectronic and photovoltaic applications.