Power loss of hot Dirac fermions in silicene and its near equivalence with graphene

TL;DR

This paper analytically investigates the power loss of hot Dirac fermions in silicene, revealing similarities with graphene and highlighting silicene's potential advantages in thermal applications due to longer energy relaxation times.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analytical comparison of power loss mechanisms in silicene and graphene, including phonon interactions and substrate effects, with implications for device applications.

Findings

Power loss in silicene follows a T_e^4 law at low temperatures, similar to graphene.

Intervalley and optical phonons dominate power transfer at higher temperatures in silicene.

Silicene exhibits about four times longer energy relaxation time than graphene.

Abstract

The power loss $P$ of hot Dirac fermions through the coupling to the intrinsic intravalley and intervalley acoustic and optical phonons is analytically investigated in silicene as a function of electron temperature $T_e$ and density $n_s$. At very low $T_e$, the power dissipation is found to follow the Bloch-Gr\"{u}neisen power-law $\propto T_e^4$ and $n_s^{-0.5}$, as in graphene, and for $T_e \lesssim20-30$ K, the power loss is predominantly due to the intravalley acoustic phonon scattering. On the other hand, dispersionless low energy intervalley acoustic phonons begin to dominate the power transfer at temperatures as low as $\sim$$30$ K, and optical phonons dominate at $T_e \gtrsim200$ K, unlike the graphene. The total power loss increases with $T_e$ with a value of $\sim$$10^{10}$ eV/s at $300$ K, which is the same order of magnitude as in graphene. The power loss due to intravalley acoustic phonons increases with $n_s$ at higher $T_e$, whereas due to the intervalley acoustic and optical phonons is found to be independent of $n_s$. Interestingly, the energy relaxation time in silicene is about $4$ times higher than that in graphene. For this reason, silicene may be superior over graphene for its applications in bolometers and calorimeters. Power transfer to the surface optical phonons $P_{\text{SO}}$ is also studied as a function of $T_e$ and $n_s$ for silicene on Al$_2$O$_3$ substrate and it is found to be greater than the intrinsic phonon contribution at higher $T_e$. Substrate engineering is discussed to reduce $P_{\text{SO}}$.