High thermoelectric performances of monolayer GeTe allotropes

Aiming at finding wide-temperature-zone thermoelectric (TE) materials, five kinds of monolayer GeTe allotropes including the newly designedγ-,δ-, andɛ-GeTe monolayers and the usualα- andβ-GeTe ones are constructed. By using the density functional theory and the nonequilibrium Green's function method, all their electronic properties and TE transport properties are comparatively investigated. It is found that the room-temperature figure of meritZTof theγ-GeTe (ɛ-GeTe) along the armchair (zigzag) direction can amount to 4.5 (3.5), which is further increased to 7.15 (5.91) at 700 K. TheseZTvalues are much higher than the other IV-VI compounds usually withZT < 3, indicating that the armchairγ-GeTe and the zigzagɛ-GeTe we designed here can be used as superior wide-temperature-zone and high-performance TE materials in the temperature range from 300 K to 700 K. Moreover, with the increase of temperature, theZTpeaks will become wider in width and move towards the position of zero chemical potential, which will make the GeTe-based TE devices work at low bias voltages more efficiently. This work should be an important reference on the way to the stage ofZT⩾4, which will motivate more explorations into the high-performance TE materials working in a wider temperature scope.