Multi-step atomic reaction enhanced by an atomic force microscope probe on Si(111) and Ge(111) surfaces

We present first-principles total-energy electronic-structure calculations that provide the microscopic mechanism of the adatom interchange reaction on the Sn- and Pb-covered Ge(111)-(2x8) and the Sb-covered Si(111)-(7x7) surfaces with and without the tip of the atomic force microscope (AFM). We find that, without the presence of the AFM tip on the Ge surface, the adatom interchange occurs through the migration of the adatom, the spontaneous formation of the dimer structures of the two adatoms, the dimer-dimer structural transitions that induce the exchange of the positions of the two adatoms, and then the backward migration of the adatom. We also find that the dimer structure is unfeasible at room temperature on the Si surface and the adatom interchange are hereby unlikely. With the presence of the tip, we find that the reaction pathways are essentially the same for the Ge surface but that the energy barriers of the migration and the exchange processes are substantially reduced by the AFM tip. We further find that the AFM tip induces the spontaneous formation of the dimer structure even on the Si surface, hereby opening a channel of the interchange of the adatoms. Our calculations show that the bond formation between the AFM tip atom and the surface adatom is essential for the atom manipulation using the AFM tip.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

Structural stability and energy-gap modulation through atomic protrusion in freestanding bilayer silicene

We report on first-principles total-energy and phonon calculations that clarify structural stability and electronic properties of freestanding bilayer silicene. By extensive structural exploration, we reach all the stable structures reported before and find four new dynamically stable structures, including the structure with the largest cohesive energy. We find that atomic protrusion from the layer is the principal relaxation pattern which stabilizes bilayer silicene and determines the lateral periodicity. The hybrid-functional calculation shows that the most stable bilayer silicene is a semiconductor with the energy gap of 1.3 eV

New Identification of Metallic Phases of In Atomic layers on Si(111) Surfaces

We report first-principles calculations that clarify atomic structures and coverage of the metallic phases of In overlayers on Si (111) surfaces. Calculated energy bands and scanning tunneling microscopy images along with the obtained energetics of various phases reveal that the two metallic phases with the $\sqrt{7} \times \sqrt{3}$ periodicity observed experimentally are single and double In overlayers, as opposed to prevailing assignments

Interstitial Channels that Control Band Gaps and Effective Masses in Tetrahedrally Bonded Semiconductors

We find that electron states at the bottom of the conduction bands of covalent semiconductors are distributed mainly in the interstitial channels and that this floating nature leads to the band-gap variation and the anisotropic effective masses in various polytypes of SiC. We find that the channel length, rather than the hexagonality prevailed in the past, is the decisive factor for the band-gap variation in the polytypes. We also find that the floating nature causes two-dimensional electron and hole systems at the interface of different SiC polytypes and even one-dimensional channels near the inclined SiC surface.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure

Structural Tristability and Deep Dirac States in Bilayer Silicene on Ag(111) Surfaces

We report on total-energy electronic-structure calculations in the density-functional theory performed for both monolayer and bilayer silicene on Ag(111) surfaces. The rt3 x rt3 structure observed experimentally and argued to be the monolayer silicene in the past [Chen et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 085504 (2013)] is identified as the bilayer silicene on the Ag(111) surface. The identification is based on our accurate density-functional calculations in which three approximations, the local density approximation, the generalized-gradient approximation, and the van-der-Waals-density-functional approximation, to the exchange-correlation energy have been carefully examined. We find that the structural tristability exists for the rt3 x rt3 bilayer silicene. The calculated energy barriers among the three stable structures are in the range of 7 - 9 meV per Si atom, indicating possible flip-flop motions among the three. We have found that the flip-flop motion between the two of the three structures produces the honeycomb structure in the STM images, whereas the motion among the three does the 1 x 1 structure. We have found that the electron states which effectively follow Dirac equation in the freestanding silicene couple with the substrate Ag orbitals due to the bond formation, and shift downwards deep in the valence bands. This feature is common to all the stable or metastable silicene layer on the Ag(111) substrate.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

A novel intrinsic interface state controlled by atomic stacking sequence at interfaces of SiC/SiO2_2

On the basis of ab-initio total-energy electronic-structure calculations, we find that interface localized electron states at the SiC/SiO$_2$ interface emerge in the energy region between 0.3 eV below and 1.2 eV above the bulk conduction-band minimum (CBM) of SiC, being sensitive to the sequence of atomic bilayers in SiC near the interface. These new interface states unrecognized in the past are due to the peculiar characteristics of the CBM states which are distributed along the crystallographic channels. We also find that the electron doping modifies the energetics among the different stacking structures. Implication for performance of electron devices fabricated on different SiC surfaces are discussed.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Crossover between Silicene and Ultra-Thin Si Atomic Layers on Ag(111) Surfaces

We report on total-energy electronic structure calculations in the density-functional theory performed for the ultra-thin atomic layers of Si on Ag(111) surfaces. We find several distinct stable silicene structures: $\sqrt{3}\times\sqrt{3}$, $3\times3$, $\sqrt{7}\times\sqrt{7}$ with the thickness of Si increasing from monolayer to quad-layer. The structural bistability and tristability of the multilayer silicene structures on Ag surfaces are obtained, where the calculated transition barriers infer the occurrence of the flip-flop motion at low temperature. The calculated STM images agree well with the experimental observations. We also find the stable existence of $2\times1$ $\pi$-bonded chain and $7\times7$ dimer-adatom-stacking fault Si(111)-surface structures on Ag(111), which clearly shows the crossover of silicene-silicon structures for the multilayer Si on Ag surfaces. We further find the absence of the Dirac states for multilayer silicene on Ag(111) due to the covalent interactions of silicene-Ag interface and Si-Si interlayer. Instead, we find a new state near Fermi level composed of $\pi$ orbitals locating on the surface layer of $\sqrt{3}\times\sqrt{3}$ multilayer silicene, which satisfies the hexagonal symmetry and exhibits the linear energy dispersion. By examining the electronic properties of $2\times1$ $\pi$-bonded chain structures, we find that the surface-related $\pi$ states of multilayer Si structures are robust on Ag surfaces.Comment: 24 pages, 11 figure

Structural stability and energy levels of carbon-related defects in amorphous SiO2_2 and its interface with SiC

We report the density-functional calculations that systematically clarify the stable forms of carbon-related defects and their energy levels in amorphous SiO$_2$ using the melt-quench technique in molecular dynamics. Considering the position dependence of the O chemical potential near and far from the SiC/SiO$_2$ interface, we determine the most abundant forms of carbon-related defects: Far from the interface, the CO$_2$ or CO in the internal space in SiO$_2$ is abundant and they are electronically inactive; near the interface, the carbon clustering is likely and a particular mono-carbon defect and a di-carbon defect induce energy levels near the SiC conduction-band bottom, thus being candidates for the carrier traps.Comment: 8 figures, to be published in Japanese Journal of Applied Physic

A precaution for the hybrid density functional calculation of open-shell systems

We show that a naive treatment of open-shell systems in hybrid density functional calculations ignoring the spin dependence causes significant errors due to a kind of self interaction that is not emerged in spin-dependent calculations. As numerical examples, we compare the results of the LDA, GGA, and PBE0 calculations on the ionization potential and electron affinity of C$_{60}$ molecule and the GGA and HSE calculations on the singly charged monovacancy in crystalline Si

Spontaneous Appearance of Low-dimensional Magnetic Electron System on Semiconductor Nanostructures

We find that spin-polarized ground states emerge in nanofacets which are self-organized on SiC (0001) surfaces. Our large-scale density-functional calculations reveal that the nanofacet formed by bunching of single bilayer steps generates peculiar carbon dangling bond states localized at but extended along step edges. The flat-band characteristics of those C states cause either ferromagnetic or anti-ferromagnetic chains on covalent semiconductors