Twist angle and electric gating controllable electronic structure of the two-dimensional stacked BP homo-structure

The boron phosphide (BP) van der Waals (vdW) homostructure is designed to construct high-performance nano-optoelectronic devices due to its distinctive photoelectric properties. Using density functional theory, the electronic properties of twisted and untwisted BP bilayer structures are systematically calculated. We found that the 0° structure is a direct band gap semiconductor with a type II band alignment, the carrier mobility of which is increased to 104, and its photoelectric conversion efficiency is 17.3%. By analyzing the band structure and exciton binding energy calculated at 0° under an electric field, it is further found that 0° is a superior photoelectric material. As for the twist BP bilayer, the band gap changes with torsional structures under the applied electric field, which generates the Stark effect. The twist angles of bilayer BP, specifically 13.17°, 21.79°, 38.21°, and 46.83°, always maintain a direct band gap under the influence of an electric field. While 60° is an indirect band gap, the structure exhibits high resistance to the electric field. Our results reveal that bilayer BP is a potential application prospect in photovoltaic and optoelectronic fields and can provide more insights into optoelectronic devices.

Combined effect of stacking and magnetic field on the electrical conductivity and heat capacity of biased trilayer BP and BN

In this paper, the Kubo-Greenwood formula based on the tight-binding model is used to investigate the effects of the bias voltage and magnetic field on the electrical conductivity and heat capacity of the trilayer BP and BN with energy-stable stacking structures. The results show that electronic and thermal properties of the selected structures can be significantly modified by external fields. The position and intensity of DOS peaks and the band gap of selected structures are affected by the external fields. When external fields increases above critical value, the band gap decreases to zero and semiconductor-metallic transition occurs. The results show that the thermal properties of the BP and BN structures are zero in TZ temperature region and increase by temperature above TZ. The increasing rate for thermal properties depends on the stacking configuration and changes with the bias voltage and magnetic field. In the presence of the stronger field, the TZ region decreases below 100 K. Compared to the BP structures, the BN types with larger band gap has smaller electrical conductivity which can be increased in order to 3L-BP by applying the stronger magnetic field or bias voltage. These results are interesting for the future development of nanoelectronic devices.

Tunable electronic properties of BSe-MoS2/WS2 heterostructures for promoted light utilization

With applications in high performance electronics, photovoltaics, and catalysis, two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) attract extensive attention due to their extraordinary physical properties. People have focused on TMDC-based materials for years, while the low mobility greatly hinders their further application. TMDC-based heterostructures with tunable band alignment have been experimentally confirmed to be feasible for photoelectronic devices or photocatalysts. Based on the density functional theory (DFT), there are four discoveries in this work: (1) we propose two new heterostructures based on BSe and MoS2/WS2 that have quite low mismatches and intrinsic type-II alignments. (2) Even though the VBM of BSe-MoS2 are completely contributed by BSe, the heterostructure is still endowed with a lower effective mass and a better transport characteristic in comparison with pristine structures. (3) A promoted absorption ability and a better transport characteristic oppose each other and the two characteristics cannot be obtained at the same time. (4) Tension strained structures can induce promoted light absorption in the solar spectrum and the predicted efficiency of the BSe-MoS2 bilayer can be as high as ∼19.3%, when the external electric field is applied. This theoretical survey proves that BSe-MoS2/WS2 with high flexibility and tunability are potential candidates for novel electronic devices and photocatalysts.

Two-dimensional ultrathin van der Waals heterostructures of indium selenide and boron monophosphide for superfast nanoelectronics, excitonic solar cells, and digital data storage devices

Semiconducting indium selenide (InSe) monolayers have drawn a great deal of attention among all the chalcogenide two-dimensional materials on account of their high electron mobility; however, they suffer from low hole mobility. This inherent limitation of an InSe monolayer can be overcome by stacking it on top of a boron phosphide (BP) monolayer, where the complementary properties of BP can bring additional benefits. The electronic, optical, and external perturbation-dependent electronic properties of InSe/BP hetero-bilayers have been systematically investigated within density functional theory in anticipation of its cutting-edge applications. The InSe/BP heterostructure has been found to be an indirect semiconductor with an intrinsic type-II band alignment where the conduction band minimum (CBM) and valence band maximum (VBM) are contributed by the InSe and BP monolayers, respectively. Thus, the charge carrier mobility in the heterostructure, which is mainly derived from the BP monolayer, reaches as high as 12 × 10³ cm² V^-1 s^-1, which is very much desired in superfast nanoelectronics. The suitable bandgap accompanied by a very low conduction band offset between the donor and acceptor along with robust charge carrier mobility, and the mechanical and dynamical stability of the heterostructure attests its high potential for applications in solar energy harvesting and nanoelectronics. The solar to electrical power conversion efficiency (20.6%) predicted in this work surpasses the efficiencies reported for InSe based heterostructures, thereby demonstrating its superiority in solar energy harvesting. Moreover, the heterostructure transits from the semiconducting state (the OFF state) to the metallic state (the ON state) by the application of a small electric field (∼0.15 V Å^-1) which is brought about by the actual movement of the bands rather than via the nearly empty free electron gas (NFEG) feature. This thereby testifies to its potential for applications in digital data storage. Moreover, the heterostructure shows strong absorbance over a wide spectrum ranging from UV to the visible light of solar radiation, which will be of great utility in UV-visible light photodetectors.

Optical absorption and excitation spectra of monolayer blue phosphorene

We study the optical absorption and excitation spectra of monolayer blue phosphorene with two approaches. The first is based on the [Formula: see text] approximation in conjunction with the Bethe-Salpeter equation theory. The second is based on the time-dependent density-functional theory in the adiabatic local density approximation and the random phase approximation. The spectra from the two approaches are quite similar. The optical absorption spectrum is dominated by a single peak at 4.2 eV, which originates from direct interband transitions at the [Formula: see text] point of the Brillouin zone. The excitation spectrum is dominated by a plasmon peak at 9.2 eV, which arises from collective excitations of valence electrons. The plasmon shows a positive dispersion at finite momentum transfer. The in-plane electron is responsible for the optical absorption, whereas the out-of-plane electron is responsible for the plasmon dispersion. Monolayer blue phosphorene has an indirect band gap of 2.98 eV and an exciton binding energy of 1.03 eV.