Thermal properties of transition-metal dichalcogenide

Beyond graphene, the layered transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have gained considerable attention due to their unique properties. Herein, we review the lattice dynamic and thermal properties of monolayer TMDs, including their phonon dispersion, relaxation time, mean free path (MFP), and thermal conductivities. In particular, the experimental and theoretical studies reveal that the TMDs have relatively low thermal conductivities due to the short phonon group velocity and MFP, which poses a significant challenge for efficient thermal management of TMDs-based devices. Importantly, recent studies have shown that this issue could be largely addressed by connecting TMDs and other materials (such as metal electrode and graphene) with chemical bonds, and a relatively high interfacial thermal conductance (ITC) could be achieved at the covalent bonded interface. The ITC of MoS₂/Au interface with chemical edge contact is more than 10 times higher than that with physical side contact. In this article, we review recent advances in the study of TMD-related ITC. The effects of temperature, interfacial vacancy, contact orientation, and phonon modes on the edge-contacted interface are briefly discussed. (topical review – thermal and thermoelectric properties of nano materials)