High Stability, Piezoelectric Response, and Promising Photocatalytic Activity on the New Pentagonal CGeP Monolayer.

This study introduces the penta-structured semiconductor p-CGeP through density functional theory simulations, which possesses an indirect band gap transition of 3.20 eV. Mechanical analysis confirms the mechanical stability of p-CGeP, satisfying Born-Huang criteria. Notably, p-CGeP has significant direct ( = -11.27 and = -5.34 × 10 C/m) and converse ( = -18.52 and = -13.18 pm/V) piezoelectric coefficients, surpassing other pentagon-based structures. Under tensile strain, the band gap energy increases to 3.31 eV at 4% strain, then decreases smoothly to 1.97 eV at maximum stretching, representing an ∼38% variation. Under compressive strain, the band gap decreases almost linearly to 2.65 eV at -8% strain and then drops sharply to 0.97 eV, an ∼69% variation. Strongly basic conditions result in a promising band alignment for the new p-CGeP monolayer. This suggests potential photocatalytic behavior across all tensile strain regimes and significant compression levels (ε = 0% to -8%). This study highlights the potential of p-CGeP for groundbreaking applications in nanoelectronic devices and materials engineering.