Unraveling heat transport and dissipation in suspended MoSe2 crystals from bulk to monolayer

Understanding thermal transport in layered transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) crystals is crucial for a myriad of applications exploiting these materials. Despite significant efforts, several basic thermal transport properties of TMDs are currently not well understood. Here, we present a combined experimental-theoretical study of the intrinsic lattice thermal conductivity of the representative TMD MoSe2, focusing on the effect of material thickness and the material's environment. We use Raman thermometry measurements on suspended crystals, where we identify and eliminate crucial artefacts, and perform ab initio simulations with phonons at finite, rather than zero, temperature. We find that phonon dispersions and lifetimes change strongly with thickness, yet (sub)nanometer thin TMD films exhibit a similar in-plane thermal conductivity (∼20~Wm−1K−1) as bulk crystals (∼40~Wm−1K−1). This is the result of compensating phonon contributions, in particular low-frequency modes with a surprisingly long mean free path of several micrometers that contribute significantly to thermal transport for monolayers. We furthermore demonstrate that out-of-plane heat dissipation to air is remarkably efficient, in particular for the thinnest crystals. These results are crucial for the design of TMD-based applications in thermal management, thermoelectrics and (opto)electronics.