Thermal conductivity of exfoliated and chemical vapor deposition-grown tin disulfide nanofilms: role of grain boundary conductance

Tin disulfide (SnS₂) is a layered two-dimensional (2D) semiconductor material that shows great potentials in applications such as photodetectors, sensors, field-effect transistors, thermoelectric power generators, etc. The understanding of thermal transport in SnS₂ is important for the optimization of thermal management and energy transport and conversion processes in these devices. Here we compare the in-plane thermal conductivities of mechanically exfoliated single-crystalline and chemical vapor deposition (CVD)-grown polycrystalline SnS₂ nanofilms measured using the Raman optothermal technique. The polycrystalline SnS₂ film with a grain size of 250 nm has a low in-plane thermal conductivity of 4.8–5.6 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹, which is approximately half that of the single-crystalline SnS₂ film due to phonon scattering at the grain boundaries. The thermal transport across crystal grains is simulated using two approaches: (1) A finite element model with generated Voronoi cells, and (2) an empirical equation that takes into account the grain boundary thermal conductance (G′). The two approaches yield similar values for the effective G′, as well as consistent dependences of the in-plane thermal conductivity on the average grain size. It is predicted that the in-plane thermal conductivity of the polycrystalline SnS₂ film can be substantially reduced with finer grains. The results of this work offer a fundamental understanding of the thermal transport properties of single-crystalline and polycrystalline SnS₂ films from different growth methods, and demonstrate the potential to control the thermal conductivity of SnS₂ by tuning the grain size for future thermoelectric applications.