Negative thermal expansion of pure and doped graphene

Abstract

Graphene and its derivatives distinguish themselves for their large negative thermal expansion even at temperatures as high as 1000 K. The linear thermal expansion coefficients (LTEC) of two-dimensional honeycomb structured pure graphene and B/N doped graphene are analyzed using ab initio density functional perturbation theory (DFPT) employed in VASP software under quasiharmonic approximation. One of the essential ingredients required is the phonon frequencies for a set of points in the Brillouin zone and their volume dependence. These were obtained from the dynamical matrix which was calculated using VASP code in interface with phonopy code. In particular, the transverse acoustic modes (ZA) behave drastically differently as compared to planer modes and so also their volume dependence. Using this approach firstly thermal expansion for pure graphene is calculated. The results agree with earlier calculations using similar approach. Thereafter we have studied the effect of boron and nitrogen doping on LTEC. The LTEC of graphene is found to be negative in the entire range of temperature under study (0–1000 K) and its value at room temperature (RT) is around −3.26 × 10⁻⁶ K⁻¹. The value of LTEC at RT becomes more negative with B/N doping in graphene. In order to get an insight into the cause of negative thermal expansion, we have computed the contribution of individual phonon modes of vibration. We notice that it is principally the ZA modes which are responsible for negative thermal expansion. It has been concluded that transverse mode in 2D hexagonal lattices have an important role to play in many of the thermodynamical properties of 2D structures. We have extended the study to calculate the LTEC of h-BN sheet also.