Low thermal conductivity in single crystalline epitaxial germanane films

We investigated thermal conductivity of epitaxial germanane films: Stacked structure of hydrogenated germanenes. It was confirmed that single crystalline germanane films were epitaxially grown on Ge(111). The films exhibited low out-of-plane thermal conductivity of 1.1 ± 0.3 W m^-1 K^-1 which is lower than other layered materials composed of heavy atoms. This came from weak van der Waals interlayer interaction related to weak polarization in germanane composed of smaller atoms. This demonstrates that choice of small constituent atoms for weakening van der Waals interlayer interaction is a promising thermal conductivity reduction outline for developing ecofriendly high performance thermoelectric layered materials.