Electronic structures of the F-terminated AlN nanoribbons

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PRAMANAc󰁭IndianAcademyofSciencesVol.78,No.3

—journalofMarch2012

physicspp.469–474ElectronicstructuresoftheF-terminatedAlNnanoribbons

YU-LINGSONG1,2,∗,DAO-BANGLU2,BEN-LIANGCUI2andJIAN-MINZHANG11CollegeofPhysicsandInformationTechnology,ShaanXiNormalUniversity,Xian,

ShaanXi710062,China2CollegeofPhysicsandElectronicEngineering,NanyangNormalUniversity,

Nanyang473061,China∗Correspondingauthor.E-mail:dblu985@163.com

MSreceived1May2011;accepted14October2011

Abstract.Usingthefirst-principlescalculations,electronicpropertiesfortheF-terminatedAlN

nanoribbonswithbothzigzagandarmchairedgesarestudied.Theresultsshowthatboththezigzag

andarmchairAlNnanoribbonsaresemiconductingandnonmagnetic,andtheindirectbandgapof

thezigzagAlNnanoribbonsandthedirectbandgapofthearmchaironesdecreasemonotonically

withincreasingribbonwidth.Incontrast,theF-terminatedAlNnanoribbonshavenarrowerband

gapsthanthoseoftheH-terminatedoneswhentheribbonshavethesamebandwidth.Thedensity-

of-states(DOS)andlocaldensity-of-states(LDOS)analysesshowthatthetopofthevalenceband

fortheF-terminatedribbonsismainlycontributedbyNatoms,whileatthesideoftheconduc-

tionband,thetotalDOSismainlycontributedbyAlatoms.Thechargedensitycontouranalyses

showthatAl–FbondisionicbecausetheelectronegativityofFatomismuchstrongerforFatom

thanforAlatom,whileN–Fbondiscovalentbecauseofthecombinedactionofthestronger

electronegativityandthesmallercovalentradius.

Keywords.Firstprinciple;electronicproperty;bandstructure;F-terminated;AlNnanoribbon.

PACSNo.73.21.−b

1.Introduction

Electronicandmagneticpropertiesofsingle-layergraphenehaveattractedmuchatten-

tion[1–6].Thesingle-layeredIII–Vsemiconductors,especiallythegroupIIInitrides,

havebeenwidelyusedinelectronicdevicesbecauseoftheirhighthermalstabilityand

theirpotentialtechnologicalapplications[7–9].Nanoribbonshaveattractedincreasing

attentionbecauseoftheirnovelgeometriesaswellasthepromisingpropertiesrelating

to,e.g.,opticsandnanoscaleelectronicdevices.AsanimportantmemberofgroupIII

nitrides,AlNisthelargestband-gapsemiconductor,whichisperfectfortheepitaxial

growthoftheGaN-basedheterostructuresduetoitssmalllatticemismatchwithGaN

anditssuperiorpropertiessuchashighthermostabilityandconductivityandreliable

DOI:10.1007/s12043-011-0240-y;ePublication:5March2012469Yu-LingSongetaldielectricproperties.Henceiswidelyusedinelectronicindustry.Duetothelargeion-

icityoftheAl–Nbond,AlNnanoribbons(AlNNRs)possessnovelpropertieswhichare

differentfromgraphenenanoribbonsleadingtonewpotentialapplicationsinopticsand

nanoscaleelectronicdevices.TheperfectandwithAlorNvacantAlNNRswithHtermi-

nationhavebeenintensivelystudiedusingfirstprinciplescalculationsandobtainedsome

usefulresults[9].However,sometheoreticalstudiesshowthattheelectronicproperties

ofthenanomaterialscanbemodulatedbytheterminatedFatom[10–12].Uptonow,

therearenoreportsabouttheelectronicpropertiesofF-terminatedAlNNRs.

Inthispaper,AlNNRwithzigzagedge(ZAlNNR)andarmchairedge(AAlNNR)

terminatedwithFatomshavebeeninvestigatedbyusingthefirst-principlesprojector-

augmentedwave(PAW)potentialwithinthedensityfunctiontheory(DFT)framework

underthegeneralizedgradientapproximation(GGA).Therestofthepaperisorganized

asfollows.ThecalculationmethodandmodelsofthetwotypesofF-terminatedAlNNRs

aregivenin§2.Theenergybandstructures,thedensity-of-states(DOS)andthecharge

densityofthesystemsareanalysedin§3andconclusionsarepresentedin§4.

2.Calculationmethodandstructuremodel

ThecalculationsareperformedusingtheVASPbasedonDFT[13–18].Theelectron-ion

coreinteractionisrepresentedbythePAWpotentials[19].Totreatelectronexchangeand

correlation,wechosethePerdew–Burke–Ernzerhof(PBE)formulationoftheGGA[20],

whichyieldscorrectground-statestructureofthecombinedsystems.Thecut-offenergy

fortheplanewavesischosentobe450eV.The2s22p3,3s23p1and2s22p5electronsare

takenasthevalenceelectronsforN,AlandFatoms,respectively.Inordertosimulate

infinitelongisolatednanoribbon,weuseasupercellgeometrywhereeachplaneissep-

aratedfromitsreplicaby15Åinbothedge-to-edgeandlayer-to-layerdirections.The

sampledkpointsintheBrillouinzonearegeneratedbytheMonkhorst–Packscheme[21]

with󰀐-centredgrids.Toavoidnumericalinstabilityduetolevelcrossingandquasidegen-

eracyneartheFermilevel,weuseamethodofMethfessel–Paxtonfirst-ordersmearing

withawidthof0.2eV.GeometricstructuresoftheAlNNRsarefullyrelaxedtominimize

thetotalenergyofthesystemuntilaprecisionof10−4isreached.Theconjugategradient

minimizationisusedfortheoptimizationofatomcoordinatesuntiltheforcesactingon

eachatomaresmallerthan0.02eV/Å.

N

Al

F

(a)(b)

Figure1.Geometryfor(a)F-terminated6-ZAlNNRand(b)F-terminated7-

AAlNNR.

470Pramana–J.Phys.,Vol.78,No.3,March2012