Department Of Physics
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Item Janus ?-PdXY (X/Y = S, Se, Te) materials with high anisotropic thermoelectric performance(Royal Society of Chemistry, 2023-02-21T00:00:00) Jakhar, Mukesh; Sharma, Raman; Kumar, AshokTwo-dimensional (2D) materials have garnered considerable attention as emerging thermoelectric (TE) materials owing to their unique density of states (DOS) near the Fermi level. We investigate the TE performance of Janus ?-PdXY (X/Y = S, Se, Te) monolayer materials as a function of carrier concentration and temperature in the mid-range from 300 to 800 K by combining density functional theory (DFT) and semi-classical Boltzmann transport theory. The phonon dispersion spectra and AIMD simulations confirm their thermal and dynamic stability. The transport calculation results reveal the highly anisotropic TE performance of both n and p-type Janus ?-PdXY monolayers. Meanwhile, the coexistence of low phonon group velocity and a converged scattering rate leads to a lower lattice thermal conductivity (Kl) of 0.80 W mK?1, 0.94 W mK?1, and 0.77 W mK?1 along the y-direction for these Janus materials, while the high TE power factor is attributed to the high Seebeck coefficient (S) and electrical conductivity, which are due to the degenerate top valence bands of these Janus monolayers. The combination of lower Kl and a high-power factor at 300 K (800 K) leads to an optimal figure of merit (ZT) of 0.68 (2.21), 0.86 (4.09) and 0.68 (3.63) for p-type Janus PdSSe, PdSeTe and PdSTe monolayers, respectively. To evaluate rational electron transport properties, the effects of acoustic phonon scattering (?ac), impurity scattering (?imp), and polarized phonon scattering (?polar) are included in the temperature-dependent electron relaxation time. These findings indicated that the Janus ?-PdXY monolayers are promising candidates for TE conversion devices. � 2023 The Royal Society of Chemistry.Item Janus ?-Te2X (X = S, Se) monolayers for efficient excitonic solar cells and photocatalytic water splitting(Royal Society of Chemistry, 2023-01-04T00:00:00) Singh, Jaspreet; Kumar, AshokHighly efficient, environmentally friendly and renewable sources of energy are of great need today to combat increasing energy demands and environmental pollution. In this work, we have investigated the novel 2D allotropes, i.e., ?-Te2X (X = S, Se), using first-principles calculations and study their potential applications in light harvesting devices. Both the monolayers possess high stability and semiconducting nature with an indirect band gap. The high carrier mobilities and excellent optical absorption of these monolayers make them potential candidates for solar conversion applications. We have proposed the type-II heterojunction solar cells and calculated their power conversion efficiencies (PCEs). The small conduction band offset and appropriate band gap of donor material in the case of ?-Te2S(S-Side)/?-Te2S(Te-Side) heterojunction results in a PCE of ?21%. In addition, the band alignments of these monolayers properly engulf the redox potentials of water. The overpotentials required to trigger hydrogen reduction (HER) and water oxidation (OER) half reactions reveal that HER and OER preferred acidic and neutral media, respectively. The calculated solar-to-hydrogen (STH) efficiencies of ?-Te2S (?-Te2Se) monolayers turn out to be ?13% (?12%), respectively, which implies their practical applications in water splitting. Thus, our work provides strong evidence regarding the potential applications of these materials in the field of light harvesting devices. � 2023 The Royal Society of Chemistry.Item Photocatalytic properties of anisotropic ?-PtX2 (X = S, Se) and Janus ?-PtSSe monolayers(Royal Society of Chemistry, 2022-09-01T00:00:00) Jamdagni, Pooja; Kumar, Ashok; Srivastava, Sunita; Pandey, Ravindra; Tankeshwar, K.The highly efficient photocatalytic water splitting process to produce clean energy requires novel semiconductor materials to achieve a high solar-to-hydrogen energy conversion efficiency. Herein, the photocatalytic properties of anisotropic ?-PtX2 (X = S, Se) and Janus ?-PtSSe monolayers were investigated based on the density functional theory. The small cleavage energy for ?-PtS2 (0.44 J m?2) and ?-PtSe2 (0.40 J m?2) endorses the possibility of mechanical exfoliation from their respective layered bulk materials. The calculated results revealed that the ?-PtX2 monolayers have an appropriate bandgap (?1.8-2.6 eV) enclosing the water redox potential, light absorption coefficient (?104 cm?1), and exciton binding energy (?0.5-0.7 eV), which facilitates excellent visible-light-driven photocatalytic performance. Remarkably, the inherent structural anisotropy leads to an anisotropic high carrier mobility (up to ?5 � 103 cm2 V?1 S?1), leading to a fast transport of photogenerated carriers. Notably, the required small external potential to realize hydrogen evolution reaction and oxygen evolution reaction processes with an excellent solar-to-hydrogen energy conversion efficiency for ?-PtSe2 (?16%) and ?-PtSSe (?18%) makes them promising candidates for solar water splitting applications. � 2022 The Royal Society of Chemistry.Item Mechanical, optical and thermoelectric properties of Janus BiTeCl monolayer(Elsevier Ltd, 2022-04-29T00:00:00) Chauhan, Poonam; Singh, Jaspreet; Kumar, AshokWe report mechanical, optical and thermoelectric properties of recently fabricated Janus BiTeCl monolayer using density functional and semi-classical Boltzmann transport theory. Janus BiTeCl monolayer exhibits a direct bandgap, high carrier mobility (?103 cm2V?1s?1) and high optical absorption in the UV�visible region. The mechanical behavior of the Janus BiTeCl monolayer is nearly isotropic having an ideal tensile strength ?15 GPa. The higher value of the Gruneisen parameter (?), a low value of phonon group velocity (vg), and very little phonon scattering time (?p) lead to low lattice thermal conductivity (1.46 W/mK) of Janus BiTeCl monolayer. The combined effect of thermal conductivity and electronic transport coefficients of Janus BiTeCl monolayer results in the figure of merit (ZT) in the range of 0.43�0.75 at 300�500 K. Our results suggest Janus BiTeCl monolayer be a potential candidate for optoelectronic and moderate temperature thermoelectric applications. � 2022Item Two-dimensional ?-PdX2 (X = S, Te) monolayers for efficient solar energy conversion applications(Royal Society of Chemistry, 2022-02-09T00:00:00) Jakhar, Mukesh; Kumar, AshokThe search for highly effective and environmentally safe photocatalysts for water splitting and photovoltaic solar cells is essential for renewable solar energy conversion and storage. Based on first-principle calculations, we show that novel 2D ?-PdX2 (X = S, Te) monolayer possesses excellent stability and great potential in solar energy conversion applications. Comprehensive studies show that the ?-PdS2 monolayer exhibits semiconductor characteristics with an indirect gap, suitable band alignment, efficient carrier separation, and high solar to hydrogen (STH) efficiency, supporting its good photoelectronic performance. The surface catalytic and adsorption/intercalation energy calculation reveals that the photogenerated electrons have adequate driving forces to render hydrogen reduction half-reactions to proceed spontaneously and the ability to cover and incorporate water molecules on the ?-PdS2 monolayer. Besides, the ?-PdTe2 monolayer is a promising donor material for excitonic solar cells with high photovoltaic performance. More importantly, due to suitable donor band gap and small conduction band offset in the proposed type-II heterostructure, the power conversion efficiencies (PCE) were calculated up to ?23% (?-PdTe2/WTe2), ?21% (?-PdTe2/MoTe2) and ?18% (?-PdTe2/?-PdS2), making it a promising candidate for solar energy conversion applications. � 2022 The Royal Society of ChemistryItem Tunable photocatalytic water splitting and solar-to-hydrogen efficiency in ?-PdSe2monolayer(Royal Society of Chemistry, 2021-08-18T00:00:00) Jakhar, Mukesh; Kumar, AshokDirect production of hydrogen from photocatalytic water splitting is a potential solution to overcome global energy crisis. Herein, based on first-principles calculations, we demonstrate that the two-dimensional ?-PdSe2 monolayer is a promising candidate for efficient photocatalytic water splitting in acidic and alkaline media as well as neutral medium with highly efficient solar-to-hydrogen efficiency. ?-PdSe2 monolayer shows low cleavage energy which endorses the possibility of its mechanical exfoliation from layered bulk ?-PdSe2. Remarkably, ?-PdSe2 monolayer is semiconducting with indirect band gap of 1.96 eV with perfect engulfing the redox potential of water in a wide range of pH of medium. ?-PdSe2 monolayer exhibits good light harvesting ability and adequate driving forces for water redox reaction in wide range of pH (0 to 12). Comprehensive investigation of pH dependent water splitting indicates that the ?-PdSe2 monolayer is a better candidate for efficient water splitting in alkaline media rather than acidic or neutral medium. In addition, high solar-to-hydrogen efficiency as high as ?17% is obtained that shows ?-PdSe2 monolayer a promising candidate for overall photocatalytic water-splitting. � The Royal Society of Chemistry.Item Stability and electronic properties of hybrid SnO bilayers: SnO/graphene and SnO/BN(Institute of Physics Publishing, 2017) Guo, Qing; Wang, Gaoxue; Kumar, Ashok; Pandey, RavindraVan der Waals structures based on two-dimensional materials have been considered as promising structures for novel nanoscale electronic devices. Two-dimensional SnO films which display intrinsic p-type semiconducting properties were fabricated recently. In this paper, we consider vertically stacked heterostructures consisting of a SnO monolayer with graphene or a BN monolayer to investigate their stability, electronic and transport properties using density functional theory. The calculated results find that the properties of the constituent monolayers are retained in these SnO-based heterostructures, and a p-type Schottky barrier is formed in the SnO/graphene heterostructure. Additionally, the Schottky barrier can be effectively controlled with an external electric field, which is useful characteristic for the van der Waals heterostructure-based electronic devices. In the SnO/BN heterostructure, the electronic properties of SnO are least affected by the insulating monolayer suggesting that the BN monolayer would be an ideal substrate for SnO-based nanoscale devices. ? 2017 IOP Publishing Ltd.Item Alloyed monolayers of Cu, Ag, Au and Pt in hexagonal phase: A comprehensive first principles study(Elsevier Ltd, 2018) Kapoor, Pooja; Kumar, Arun; Sharma, Munish; Kumar, Jagdish; Kumar, Ashok; Ahluwalia, P. K.We present density functional theory (DFT) based comprehensive study of two-dimensional (2D) alloyed monolayers of noble metals (AgCu, AgPt, AgAu, AuCu, AuPt and CuPt) in hexagonal phase within numerical atomic orbitals and plane wave basis sets methods. The monolayers considered exhibit positive phonon frequencies suggesting them to be dynamically stable. The Pt containing alloyed monolayers have superior structural stability (binding energy and tensile strength) and exhibit metallic and ferromagnetic character amongst all the alloyed monolayers. Interestingly, alloying of Au monolayer with Cu and Ag show semiconducting behavior whereas alloyed AgCu monolayer posseses Dirac-cone like features at high symmetry points. These distinct features in electronic structures of alloyed 2D monolayers have been captured in STM like set up. An anisotropic behavior has been observed in dielectric spectra for all the considered structures. Tunneling characteristics show NDR region for Pt containing alloyed monolayers. The considered alloyed monolayers may potentially be useful as a building blocks for the applications in nano- and opto-electronics. ? 2017 Elsevier B.V.Item Electronic properties and STM images of vacancy clusters and chains in functionalized silicene and germanene(Elsevier B.V., 2017) Jamdagni, Pooja; Kumar, Ashok; Sharma, Munish; Thakur, Anil; Ahluwalia, P. K.Electronic properties and STM topographical images of X (=F, H, O) functionalized silicene and germanene have been investigated by introducing various kind of vacancy clusters and chain patterns in monolayers within density functional theory (DFT) framework. The relative ease of formation of vacancy clusters and chain patterns is found to be energetically most favorable in hydrogenated silicene and germanene. F- and H-functionalized silicene and germanene are direct bandgap semiconducting with bandgap ranging between 0.1?1.9?eV, while O-functionalized monolayers are metallic in nature. By introducing various vacancy clusters and chain patterns in both silicene and germanene, the electronic and magnetic properties get modified in significant manner e.g. F- and H-functionalized silicene and germanene with hexagonal and rectangle vacancy clusters are non-magnetic semiconductors with modified bandgap values while pentagonal and triangle vacancy clusters induce metallicity and magnetic character in monolayers; hexagonal vacancy chain patterns induce direct-to-indirect gap transition while zigzag vacancy chain patterns retain direct bandgap nature of monolayers. Calculated STM topographical images show distinctly different characteristics for various type of vacancy clusters and chain patterns which may be used as electronic fingerprints to identify various vacancy patterns in silicene and germanene created during the process of functionalization. ? 2016 Elsevier B.V.Item Electronic, Mechanical, and Dielectric Properties of Two-Dimensional Atomic Layers of Noble Metals(Springer New York LLC, 2017) Kapoor, Pooja; Kumar, Jagdish; Kumar, Arun; Kumar, Ashok; Ahluwalia, P. K.We present density functional theory-based electronic, mechanical, and dielectric properties of monolayers and bilayers of noble metals (Au, Ag, Cu, and Pt) taken with graphene-like hexagonal structure. The Au, Ag, and Pt bilayers stabilize in AA-stacked configuration, while the Cu bilayer favors the AB stacking pattern. The quantum ballistic conductance of the noble-metal mono- and bilayers is remarkably increased compared with their bulk counterparts. Among the studied systems, the tensile strength is found to be highest for the Pt monolayer and bilayer. The noble metals in mono- and bilayer form show distinctly different electron energy loss spectra and reflectance spectra due to the quantum confinement effect on going from bulk to the monolayer limit. Such tunability of the electronic and dielectric properties of noble metals by reducing the degrees of freedom of electrons offers promise for their use in nanoelectronics and optoelectronics applications. ? 2016, The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society.