Issue 21, 2023

Structure-engineering the stability, electronic, optical and photocatalytic properties of hexagonal C2P2 monolayers

Abstract

Structure engineering presents unique opportunities in materials science field, including material design and modification. Herein, we applied structure engineering to double-sublayer hexagonal C2P2 monolayers so as to form two novel non-Janus structures and two new Janus structures. Based on first-principles calculations, the stability, electronic, optical, and photocatalytic properties of the C2P2 monolayers, including the two discovered structures and four new C2P2 monolayers, have been investigated. The results showed that these C2P2 monolayers are highly stable in energetics, dynamics, and thermodynamics. We also found that counterrotating 60° between the top and bottom sublayers could make the C2P2 monolayers become more stable. The calculations of the project band structures indicated that the new C2P2 monolayers were semiconductors with indirect band gaps ranging from 1.02 eV to 2.62 eV. Meanwhile, it was also suggested that the distributions of VBM and CBM in the two Janus C2P2 monolayers were out-of-plane due to their internal electric fields. Moreover, the carrier mobility of the C2P2 monolayers was anisotropic between an armchair and zigzag direction and quite high (reaching 103 cm2 V−1 s−1) in the zigzag direction. Additionally, all the C2P2 monolayers had large exciton binding energies (∼1.0 eV) and considerable absorption in the visible-light region. Furthermore, except for the CP-3 monolayer, all the C2P2 monolayers, including CP-1, CP-2, CP-4, CP-5, and CP-6, have great potential for metal-free visible-light photocatalytic water splitting. Our calculations reveal that structure engineering is particularly applicable to multi-sublayer two-dimensional materials for discovering new members and tuning their properties.

Graphical abstract: Structure-engineering the stability, electronic, optical and photocatalytic properties of hexagonal C2P2 monolayers

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
30 Jan 2023
Accepted
09 May 2023
First published
11 May 2023

Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2023,25, 15052-15061

Structure-engineering the stability, electronic, optical and photocatalytic properties of hexagonal C2P2 monolayers

J. Lin, B. Zhang, T. Zhang and X. Chen, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2023, 25, 15052 DOI: 10.1039/D3CP00484H

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