Three-Dimensional Carbon Allotropes Comprising Phenyl Rings and Acetylenic Chains in sp plus sp(2) Hybrid Networks

Abstract

We here identify by ab initio calculations a new type of three-dimensional (3D) carbon allotropes that consist of phenyl rings connected by linear acetylenic chains in sp+sp(2) bonding networks. These structures are constructed by inserting acetylenic or diacetylenic bonds into an all sp(2)-hybridized rhombohedral polybenzene lattice, and the resulting 3D phenylacetylene and phenyldiacetylene nets comprise a 12-atom and 18-atom rhombohedral primitive unit cells in the R (3) over barm symmetry, which are characterized as the 3D chiral crystalline modification of 2D graphyne and graphdiyne, respectively. Simulated phonon spectra reveal that these structures are dynamically stable. Electronic band calculations indicate that phenylacetylene is metallic, while phenyldiacetylene is a semiconductor with an indirect band gap of 0.58 eV. The present results establish a new type of carbon phases and offer insights into their outstanding structural and electronic properties.