Thermal and mechanical properties of NHG under strain
graphene, nanostructures, elasticity, thermal conductivity
One and two-dimensional materials, such nanowires, nanotubes, graphene, and boron nitride, triggered enormous interest due to their potential application in novel electronic and heat management devices. In contrast to three-dimensional bulk materials, thermal transport in low-dimensions can be quite different. Graphene exhibits extraordinary physical properties, including an extremely high thermal conductivity. A novel graphene-derived two- dimensional crystal with a C2N stoichiometry and evenly distributed holes and nitrogen atoms in its basal plane, nitrogenated holey graphene (NHG), has recently been synthesized. Here we report an investigation of the thermal conductivity of NHG via non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations based on the Tersoff interatomic potential. We perform an analysis of finite-size effects and extrapolate our simulation results to estimate the properties of very large NHG sheets. The intrinsic thermal conductivity of NHG at room temperature was found to be 67.23 W/m-K, with an effective phonon mean free path of 16.84 nm. Both quantities are much smaller than the corresponding ones for graphene. Under uniaxial or biaxial strain we observe an increase in thermal conductivity and the corresponding effective phonon mean-free-path, although not as pronounced as in graphene.