232 research outputs found
Band Offsets at Semiconductor-Oxide Interfaces from Hybrid Density Functional Calculations
Band offsets at semiconductor-oxide interfaces are determined through a
scheme based on hybrid density functionals, which incorporate a fraction
of Hartree-Fock exchange. For each bulk component, the fraction
is tuned to reproduce the experimental band gap, and the conduction
and valence band edges are then located with respect to a reference level. The
lineup of the bulk reference levels is determined through an interface
calculation, and shown to be almost independent of the fraction .
Application of this scheme to the Si-SiO, SiC-SiO, and Si-HfO
interfaces yields excellent agreement with experiment.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Structure and energetics of the Si-SiO_2 interface
Silicon has long been synonymous with semiconductor technology. This unique
role is due largely to the remarkable properties of the Si-SiO_2 interface,
especially the (001)-oriented interface used in most devices. Although Si is
crystalline and the oxide is amorphous, the interface is essentially perfect,
with an extremely low density of dangling bonds or other electrically active
defects. With the continual decrease of device size, the nanoscale structure of
the silicon/oxide interface becomes more and more important. Yet despite its
essential role, the atomic structure of this interface is still unclear. Using
a novel Monte Carlo approach, we identify low-energy structures for the
interface. The optimal structure found consists of Si-O-Si "bridges" ordered in
a stripe pattern, with very low energy. This structure explains several
puzzling experimental observations.Comment: LaTex file with 4 figures in GIF forma
Pathways of bond topology transitions at the interface of silicon nanocrystals and amorphous silica matrix
The interface chemistry of silicon nanocrystals (NCs) embedded in amorphous
oxide matrix is studied through molecular dynamics simulations with the
chemical environment described by the reactive force field model. Our results
indicate that the Si NC-oxide interface is more involved than the previously
proposed schemes which were based on solely simple bridge or double bonds. We
identify different types of three-coordinated oxygen complexes, previously not
noted. The abundance and the charge distribution of each oxygen complex is
determined as a function of the NC size as well as the transitions among them.
The oxidation at the surface of NC induces tensile strain to Si-Si bonds which
become significant only around the interface, while the inner core remains
unstrained. Unlike many earlier reports on the interface structure, we do not
observe any double bonds. Furthermore, our simulations and analysis reveal that
the interface bond topology evolves among different oxygen bridges through
these three-coordinated oxygen complexes.Comment: 5 pages 6 figures 1 tabl
Structure and oxidation kinetics of the Si(100)-SiO2 interface
We present first-principles calculations of the structural and electronic
properties of Si(001)-SiO2 interfaces. We first arrive at reasonable structures
for the c-Si/a-SiO2 interface via a Monte-Carlo simulated annealing applied to
an empirical interatomic potential, and then relax these structures using
first-principles calculations within the framework of density-functional
theory. We find a transition region at the interface, having a thickness on the
order of 20\AA, in which there is some oxygen deficiency and a corresponding
presence of sub-oxide Si species (mostly Si^+2 and Si^+3). Distributions of
bond lengths and bond angles, and the nature of the electronic states at the
interface, are investigated and discussed. The behavior of atomic oxygen in
a-SiO2 is also investigated. The peroxyl linkage configuration is found to be
lower in energy than interstitial or threefold configurations. Based on these
results, we suggest a possible mechanism for oxygen diffusion in a-SiO2 that
may be relevant to the oxidation process.Comment: 7 pages, two-column style with 6 postscript figures embedded. Uses
REVTEX and epsf macros. Also available at
http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/~dhv/preprints/index.html#ng_sio
Hole subbands in strained GaAs-Ga1-xAlxAs quantum wells: Exact solution of the effective-mass equation
Valence subbands of uniaxially stressed GaAs-Ga1-xAlxAs quantum wells are found by solving exactly the multiband effective-mass equation for the envelope function; as in the particle in a box problem, we first solve the effective-mass equation in each bulk material, and then we impose boundary conditions on the linear combinations of bulk solutions. Discrete symmetries of the effective-mass Hamiltonian are used to decouple the spin-degenerate subbands; the energy levels are obtained as the zeros of an 8×8 determinant. The functional form of the wave functions is given analytically, and is used in order to discuss the heavy-hole light-hole mixing at finite values of the in-plane vector k?; the mixing greatly increases when the applied stress reduces the energy separation at k?=0. Resonances are shown to arise and are due to the degeneracy of discrete levels with states of the continuum at different values of k?. © 1987 The American Physical Society
Design of a low band gap oxide ferroelectric: BiTiO
A strategy for obtaining low band gap oxide ferroelectrics based on charge
imbalance is described and illustrated by first principles studies of the
hypothetical compound BiTiO, which is an alternate stacking of
the ferroelectric BiTiO. We find that this compound is
ferroelectric, similar to BiTiO although with a reduced
polarization. Importantly, calculations of the electronic structure with the
recently developed functional of Tran and Blaha yield a much reduced band gap
of 1.83 eV for this material compared to BiTiO. Therefore,
BiTiO is predicted to be a low band gap ferroelectric material
Charging Induced Emission of Neutral Atoms from NaCl Nanocube Corners
Detachment of neutral cations/anions from solid alkali halides can in
principle be provoked by donating/subtracting electrons to the surface of
alkali halide crystals, but generally constitutes a very endothermic process.
However, the amount of energy required for emission is smaller for atoms
located in less favorable positions, such as surface steps and kinks. For a
corner ion in an alkali halide cube the binding is the weakest, so it should be
easier to remove that atom, once it is neutralized. We carried out first
principles density functional calculations and simulations of neutral and
charged NaCl nanocubes, to establish the energetics of extraction of
neutralized corner ions. Following hole donation (electron removal) we find
that detachment of neutral Cl corner atoms will require a limited energy of
about 0.8 eV. Conversely, following the donation of an excess electron to the
cube, a neutral Na atom is extractable from the corner at the lower cost of
about 0.6 eV. Since the cube electron affinity level (close to that a NaCl(100)
surface state, which we also determine) is estimated to lie about 1.8 eV below
vacuum, the overall energy balance upon donation to the nanocube of a zero
energy electron from vacuum will be exothermic. The atomic and electronic
structure of the NaCl(100) surface, and of the nanocube Na and Cl corner
vacancies are obtained and analyzed as a byproduct.Comment: 16 pages, 2 table, 7 figure
Acceleration Schemes for Ab-Initio Molecular Dynamics and Electronic Structure Calculations
We study the convergence and the stability of fictitious dynamical methods
for electrons. First, we show that a particular damped second-order dynamics
has a much faster rate of convergence to the ground-state than first-order
steepest descent algorithms while retaining their numerical cost per time step.
Our damped dynamics has efficiency comparable to that of conjugate gradient
methods in typical electronic minimization problems. Then, we analyse the
factors that limit the size of the integration time step in approaches based on
plane-wave expansions. The maximum allowed time step is dictated by the highest
frequency components of the fictitious electronic dynamics. These can result
either from the large wavevector components of the kinetic energy or from the
small wavevector components of the Coulomb potential giving rise to the so
called {\it charge sloshing} problem. We show how to eliminate large wavevector
instabilities by adopting a preconditioning scheme that is implemented here for
the first-time in the context of Car-Parrinello ab-initio molecular dynamics
simulations of the ionic motion. We also show how to solve the charge-sloshing
problem when this is present. We substantiate our theoretical analysis with
numerical tests on a number of different silicon and carbon systems having both
insulating and metallic character.Comment: RevTex, 9 figures available upon request, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Identifying the Azobenzene/Aniline reaction intermediate on TiO2-(110) : a DFT Study
Density functional theory (DFT) calculations, both with and without dispersion corrections, have been performed to investigate the nature of the common surface reaction intermediate that has been shown to exist on TiO2(110) as a result of exposure to either azobenzene (C6H5N═NC6H5) or aniline (C6H5NH2). Our results confirm the results of a previous DFT study that dissociation of azobenzene into two adsorbed phenyl imide (C6H5N) fragments, as was originally proposed, is not energetically favorable. We also find that deprotonation of aniline to produce this surface species is even more strongly energetically disfavored. A range of alternative surface species has been considered, and while dissociation of azobenzene to form surface C6H4NH species is energetically favored, the same surface species cannot form from adsorbed aniline. On the contrary, adsorbed aniline is much the most stable surface species. Comparisons with experimental determinations of the local adsorption site, the Ti–N bond length, the molecular orientation, and the associated C 1s and N 1s photoelectron core level shifts are all consistent with the DFT results for adsorbed aniline and are inconsistent with other adsorbed species considered. Possible mechanisms for the hydrogenation of azobenzene required to produce this surface species are discussed
Optical properties of structurally-relaxed Si/SiO superlattices: the role of bonding at interfaces
We have constructed microscopic, structurally-relaxed atomistic models of
Si/SiO superlattices. The structural distortion and oxidation-state
characteristics of the interface Si atoms are examined in detail. The role
played by the interface Si suboxides in raising the band gap and producing
dispersionless energy bands is established. The suboxide atoms are shown to
generate an abrupt interface layer about 1.60 \AA thick. Bandstructure and
optical-absorption calculations at the Fermi Golden rule level are used to
demonstrate that increasing confinement leads to (a) direct bandgaps (b) a blue
shift in the spectrum, and (c) an enhancement of the absorption intensity in
the threshold-energy region. Some aspects of this behaviour appear not only in
the symmetry direction associated with the superlattice axis, but also in the
orthogonal plane directions. We conclude that, in contrast to Si/Ge, Si/SiO
superlattices show clear optical enhancement and a shift of the optical
spectrum into the region useful for many opto-electronic applications.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures (submitted to Phys. Rev. B
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