Electronic structures of the F-terminated AlN nanoribbons
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PRAMANAcIndianAcademyofSciencesVol.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