No Arabic abstract
SnSe, a group IV-VI monochalcogenide with layered crystal structure similar to black phosphorus, has recently attracted extensive interests due to its excellent thermoelectric properties and potential device applications. Experimental electronic structure of both the valence and conduction bands is critical for understanding the effects of hole versus electron doping on the thermoelectric properties, and to further reveal possible change of the band gap upon doping. Here, we report the multivalley valence bands with a large effective mass on semiconducting SnSe crystals and reveal single-valley conduction bands through electron doping to provide a complete picture of the thermoelectric physics. Moreover, by electron doping through potassium deposition, the band gap of SnSe can be widely tuned from 1.2 eV to 0.4 eV, providing new opportunities for tunable electronic and optoelectronic devices.
Various types of magnetism can appear in emerging quantum materials such as van der Waals layered ones. Here, we report the successful doping of manganese atoms into a post-transition metal dichalcogenide semiconductor: SnSe$_2$. We synthesized a single crystal Sn$_{1-x}$Mn$_x$Se$_{2}$ with $textit{x}$ = 0.04 by the chemical vapor transport (CVT) method and characterized it by x-ray diffraction (XRD) and energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS). The magnetic properties indicated a competition between coexisting ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic interactions, from the temperature dependence of the magnetization, together with magnetic hysteresis loops. This means that magnetic clusters having ferromagnetic interaction within a cluster form and the short-range antiferromagnetic interaction works between the clusters; a spin-glass state appears below ~ 60 K. Furthermore, we confirmed by $textit{ab initio}$ calculations that the ferromagnetic interaction comes from the 3$textit{d}$ electrons of the manganese dopant. Our results offer a new material platform to understand and utilize the magnetism in the van der Waals layered materials.
By means of ab initio calculations we investigate the possibility of existence of a boron nitride (BN) porous two-dimensional nanosheet which is geometrically similar to the carbon allotrope known as biphenylene carbon. The proposed structure, which we called Inorganic Graphenylene (IGP), is formed spontaneously after selective dehydrogenation of the porous Boron Nitride (BN) structure proposed by Ding et al. We study the structural and electronic properties of both porous BN and IGP and it is shown that, by selective substitution of B and N atoms with carbon atoms in these structures, the band gap can be significantly reduced, changing their behavior from insulators to semiconductors, thus opening the possibility of band gap engineering for this class of two-dimensional materials.
We consider exciton-photon coupling in semiconductor microcavities in which separate periodic potentials have been embedded for excitons and photons. We show theoretically that this system supports degenerate ground-states appearing at non-zero in-plane momenta, corresponding to multiple valleys in reciprocal space, which are further separated in polarization corresponding to a polarization-valley coupling in the system. Aside forming a basis for valleytronics, the multivalley dispersion is predicted to allow for spontaneous momentum symmetry breaking and two-mode squeezing under non-resonant and resonant excitation, respectively.
Ge with a quasi-direct band gap can be realized by strain engineering, alloying with Sn, or ultrahigh n-type doping. In this work, we use all three approaches together to fabricate direct-band-gap Ge-Sn alloys. The heavily doped n-type Ge-Sn is realized with CMOS-compatible nonequilibrium material processing. P is used to form highly doped n-type Ge-Sn layers and to modify the lattice parameter of P-doped Ge-Sn alloys. The strain engineering in heavily-P-doped Ge-Sn films is confirmed by x-ray diffraction and micro Raman spectroscopy. The change of the band gap in P-doped Ge-Sn alloy as a function of P concentration is theoretically predicted by density functional theory and experimentally verified by near-infrared spectroscopic ellipsometry. According to the shift of the absorption edge, it is shown that for an electron concentration greater than 1x10^20 cm-3 the band-gap renormalization is partially compensated by the Burstein-Moss effect. These results indicate that Ge-based materials have high potential for use in near-infrared optoelectronic devices, fully compatible with CMOS technology.
Silicene monolayers grown on Ag(111) surfaces demonstrate a band gap that is tunable by oxygen adatoms from semimetallic to semiconducting type. By using low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy, it is found that the adsorption configurations and amounts of oxygen adatoms on the silicene surface are critical for band-gap engineering, which is dominated by different buckled structures in R13xR13, 4x4, and 2R3x2R3 silicene layers. The Si-O-Si bonds are the most energy-favored species formed on R13xR13, 4x4, and 2R3x2R3 structures under oxidation, which is verified by in-situ Raman spectroscopy as well as first-principles calculations. The silicene monolayers retain their structures when fully covered by oxygen adatoms. Our work demonstrates the feasibility of tuning the band gap of silicene with oxygen adatoms, which, in turn, expands the base of available two-dimensional electronic materials for devices with properties that is hardly achieved with graphene oxide.