It has been argued that stanene has lowest lattice thermal conductivity among two-dimensional (2D) group-IV materials because of its largest atomic mass, weakest interatomic bonding, and enhanced ZA phonon scattering due to the breaking of an out-of-plane symmetry selection rule. However, we show that, although the lattice thermal conductivity $\kappa$ for graphene, silicene, and germanene decreases monotonically with decreasing Debye temperature, unexpected higher $\kappa$ is observed in stanene. By enforcing all the invariance conditions in 2D materials and including Ge $3d$ and Sn $4d$ electrons as valence electrons for germanene and stanene, respectively, the lattice dynamics in these materials are accurately described. A large acoustic-optical gap and the bunching of the acoustic-phonon branches significantly reduce phonon scattering in stanene, leading to higher thermal conductivity than germanene. The vibrational origin of the acoustic-optical gap can be attributed to the buckled structure. Interestingly, a buckled system has two competing influences on phonon transport: the breaking of the symmetry selection rule leads to reduced thermal conductivity, and the enlarging of the acoustic-optical gap results in enhanced thermal conductivity. The size dependence of thermal conductivity is investigated as well. In nanoribbons, the $\kappa$ of silicene, germanene, and stanene is much less sensitive to size effect due to their short intrinsic phonon mean-free paths. This work sheds light on the nature of phonon transport in buckled 2D materials.

• Received 26 February 2016
• Revised 3 November 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.94.245420