Investigation of the SnSSe Janus monolayer as the solution for efficient thermoelectric materials

Nowadays, in order to increase the energy efficiency, the use of thermoelectric materials has been suggested as the solution. Thermoelectric materials can convert heat in to electricity. This transformation is described by the Seebeck effect. The ability of thermo-electric materials is measured by ZT parameter.

In thermoelectric materials, we look for materials that have higher ZT. This means, that we want to choose a material that has lower thermal conductivity to give us a higher ZT. Here, two materials of SnSSe as a newly proposed thermoelectrically efficient janus monolayer and SnS₂ are investigated. We investigated the temperature profile of both materials by using Monte Carlo simulation of the non-Fourier phonon Boltzmann equation. As the temperature distribution is calculated, the ZT values of both materials according to peak temperature that they experience at different times, are obtained using the Seebek formula. It is obtained that the janus material of SnSSe shows a much higher ZT value compared to that of the SnS₂. This fact is true while the figure of merit for the studied janus layer is almost three times larger than the one for SnS_2. This confirms that the janus monolayer, SnSSe, is much better choice for being used as the thermoelectric material in the thermoelectric generators.