Efficient thermal conductivity modulation by manipulating interlayer interactions: A comparative study of bilayer graphene and graphite

The application of graphene in high-performance thermal management has received a lot of attention in recent years, which still needs further exploration and development. Here, based on first-principles calculations, the thermal transport is found to be efficiently modulated by enhancing interlayer interactions in bilayer graphene (BLG), showing a different trend compared to graphite. The results of our work suggest that, by enhancing the interlayer force, the “in-plane” anharmonic phonon transport of BLG while the “out-of-plane” harmonic phonon transport of graphite can be effectively tuned. By manipulating interlayer interactions, a controllable and directed parameter (6% out-of-plane compressing deformation of BLG can achieve more than 25% decrement of in-plane thermal conductivity; 10% out-of-plane compressing deformation of graphite can increase out-of-plane thermal conductivity by more than 5 times) for tuning the thermal conductivity can be achieved. The difference in the effect of the interlayer force on thermal conductivity for low-dimensional and bulk materials emphasizes the significance of the anharmonic phonon transport properties of low-dimensional materials with interlayer interaction and thereby provides an important insight for promoting the future application of bilayer graphene and graphite.