No Arabic abstract
We suggest a method for the self-consistent calculations of characteristics of metal films in dielectric environment. Within a modified Kohn-Sham method and stabilized jellium model, the most interesting case of asymmetric metal-dielectric sandwiches is considered, for which dielectric media are different from the two sides of the film. As an example, we focus on Na, Al and Pb. We calculate the spectrum, electron work function, and surface energy of polycrystalline and crystalline films placed into passive isolators. We find that a dielectric environment generally leads to the decrease of both the electron work function and surface energy. It is revealed that the change of the work function is determined only by the average of dielectric constants from both sides of the film.
We show that the dielectric coating of the metal surface leads to the change in the sign of the positron work function.
We study theoretically large metal clusters containing vacancies. We propose an approach, which combines the Kohn-Sham results for monovacancy in a bulk of metal and analytical expansions in small parameters $c_{v}$ (relative concentration of vacancies) and $R_{N,v}^{-1}$, $R_{N,v}$ being cluster radius. We obtain expressions of the ionization potential and electron affinity in the form of corrections to electron work function, which require only the characteristics of 3D defect-free metal. The Kohn-Sham method is used to calculate the electron profiles, ionization potential, electron affinity, electrical capacitance, dissociation, cohesion and monovacancy-formation energies of the small perfect clusters Na$_{N}$, Mg$_{N}$, Al$_{N}$ ($N leq 270$) and the clusters containing a monovacancy ($Ngeq 12$) in the stabilized-jellium model. The quantum-sized dependences for monovacancy-formation energies are calculated for the Schottky scenario and the bubble blowing scenario, and their asymptotic behavior is also determined. It is shown that the asymptotical behaviors of size dependences for these two mechanisms differ from each other and weakly depend on the number of atoms in the cluster. The contribution of monovacancy to energetics of charged clusters, the size dependences of their characteristics and asymptotics is discussed. It is shown that difference between the characteristics for the neutral and charged cluster is entirely determined by size dependences of ionization potential and electron affinity. Obtained analytical dependences may be useful for the analysis of the results of photoionization experiments and for the estimation of the size dependences of the vacancy concentration including the vicinity of the melting point.
Adiabatic shuttling of single impurity bound electrons to gate induced surface states in semiconductors has attracted much attention in recent times, mostly in the context of solid-state quantum computer architecture. A recent transport spectroscopy experiment for the first time was able to probe the Stark shifted spectrum of a single donor in silicon buried close to a gate. Here we present the full theoretical model involving large-scale quantum mechanical simulations that was used to compute the Stark shifted donor states in order to interpret the experimental data. Use of atomistic tight-binding technique on a domain of over a million atoms helped not only to incorporate the full band structure of the host, but also to treat realistic device geometries and donor models, and to use a large enough basis set to capture any number of donor states. The method yields a quantitative description of the symmetry transition that the donor electron undergoes from a 3D Coulomb confined state to a 2D surface state as the electric field is ramped up adiabatically. In the intermediate field regime, the electron resides in a superposition between the states of the atomic donor potential and that of the quantum dot like states at the surface. In addition to determining the effect of field and donor depth on the electronic structure, the model also provides a basis to distinguish between a phosphorus and an arsenic donor based on their Stark signature. The method also captures valley-orbit splitting in both the donor well and the interface well, a quantity critical to silicon qubits. The work concludes with a detailed analysis of the effects of screening on the donor spectrum.
Intrinsically broken symmetries in the bulk of topological insulators (TIs) are manifested in their surface states. In spite of particle-hole asymmetry in TIs, it has often been assumed that their surface states are characterized by a particle-hole symmetric Dirac energy dispersion. In this work we demonstrate that the effect of particle-hole asymmetry is essential to correctly describe the energy spectrum and the magneto-optical response in TIs thin-films. In thin-films of TIs with a substantial degree of particle-hole symmetry breaking, such as Sb$_2$Te$_3$, the longitudinal optical conductivity displays absorption peaks arising from optical transitions between bulk and surface Landau levels for low photon energies. The transition energies between the bulk and surface Landau levels exhibit clearly discernable signatures from those between surface Landau levels due to their distinct magnetic field dependence. Bulk contributions to the magneto-optical conductivity in a TI thin-film are enhanced via one type of doping while being suppressed by the other. This asymmetric dependence on type of doping aids in revealing the particle-hole asymmetry in TI thin-films.
An expansion of energy characteristics of wide thin slab of thickness L in power of 1/L is constructed using the free-electron approximation and the model of a potential well of finite depth. Accuracy of results in each order of the expansion is analyzed. Size dependences of the work function and electronic elastic force for Au and Na slabs are calculated. It is concluded that the work function of low-dimensional metal structure is always smaller that of semi-infinite metal sample. A mechanism for the Coulomb instability of charged metal clusters, different from Rayleighs one, is discussed. The two-component model of a metallic cluster yields the different critical sizes depending on a kind of charging particles (electrons or ions). For the cuboid clusters, the electronic spectrum quantization is taken into account. The calculated critical sizes of Ag_{N}^{2-} and Au_{N}^{3-} clusters are in a good agreement with experimental data. A qualitative explanation is suggested for the Coulomb explosion of positively charged Na_{N}^{n+} clusters at 3<n<5.