Dielectric screening in two-dimensional insulators: Implications for excitonic and impurity states in graphane

For atomic thin layer insulating materials we provide an exact analytic form of the two-dimensional screened potential. In contrast to three-dimensional systems where the macroscopic screening can be described by a static dielectric constant in 2D systems the macroscopic screening is non local (q-dependent) showing a logarithmic divergence for small distances and reaching the unscreened Coulomb potential for large distances. The cross-over of these two regimes is dictated by 2D layer polarizability that can be easily computed by standard first-principles techniques. The present results have strong implications for describing gap-impurity levels and also exciton binding energies. The simple model derived here captures the main physical effects and reproduces well, for the case of graphane, the full many-body GW plus Bethe-Salpeter calculations. As an additional outcome we show that the impurity hole-doping in graphane leads to strongly localized states, what hampers applications in electronic devices. In spite of the inefficient and nonlocal two-dimensional macroscopic screening we demonstrate that a simple $\mathbf{k}\cdot\mathbf{p}$ approach is capable to describe the electronic and transport properties of confined 2D systems.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figure

Phonon Softening and Direct to Indirect Bandgap Crossover in Strained Single Layer MoSe2

Motivated by recent experimental observations of Tongay et al. [Tongay et al., Nano Letters, 12(11), 5576 (2012)] we show how the electronic properties and Raman characteristics of single layer MoSe2 are affected by elastic biaxial strain. We found that with increasing strain: (1) the E' and E" Raman peaks (E1g and E2g in bulk) exhibit significant red shifts (up to 30 cm-1), (2) the position of the A1' peak remains at 180 cm-1 (A1g in bulk) and does not change considerably with further strain, (3) the dispersion of low energy flexural phonons crosses over from quadratic to linear and (4) the electronic band structure undergoes a direct to indirect bandgap crossover under 3% biaxial tensile strain. Thus the application of strain appears to be a promising approach for a rapid and reversible tuning of the electronic, vibrational and optical properties of single layer MoSe2 and similar MX2 dichalcogenides.Comment: http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.87.12541

Direct evaluation of the isotope effect within the framework of density functional theory for superconductors

Within recent developments of density functional theory, its numerical implementation and of the superconducting density functional theory is nowadays possible to predict the superconducting critical temperature, Tc, with sufficient accuracy to anticipate the experimental verification. In this paper we present an analytical derivation of the isotope coefficient within the superconducting density functional theory. We calculate the partial derivative of Tc with respect to atomic masses. We verified the final expression by means of numerical calculations of isotope coefficient in monatomic superconductors (Pb) as well as polyatomic superconductors (CaC6). The results confirm the validity of the analytical derivation with respect to the finite difference methods, with considerable improvement in terms of computational time and calculation accuracy. Once the critical temperature is calculated (at the reference mass(es)), various isotope exponents can be simply obtained in the same run. In addition, we provide the expression of interesting quantities like partial derivatives of the deformation potential, phonon frequencies and eigenvectors with respect to atomic masses, which can be useful for other derivations and applications

High-energy collective electronic excitations in layered transition-metal dichalcogenides

Under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0 (CC-BY).-- et al.We characterize experimentally and theoretically the collective electronic excitations in two prototypical layered transition-metal dichalcogenides, NbSe2 and Cu0.2NbS2. The energy- and momentum-dependent dynamical structure factor was measured by inelastic x-ray scattering (IXS) spectroscopy and simulated by time-dependent density-functional theory. We find good agreement between theory and experiment, provided that Nb semicore states are taken into account together with crystal local-field effects. Both materials have very similar spectra, characterized by two main plasmons at 9 and 23 eV, which we show to both have π+σ character on the basis of a detailed analysis of the band structure. Finally, we discuss the role of the layer anisotropy in the dispersion of these plasmons.We acknowledge financial support from the European Research Council Advanced Grant DYNamo (ERC-2010-AdG-267374), Spanish grant (2010-21282-C02-01), Grupos Consolidados UPV/EHU del Gobierno Vasco (IT578-13), European Commission project CRONOS (Grant No. 280879-2). This research was also supported by a Marie Curie FP7 Integration Grant within the 7th European Union Framework Programme, and by Generalidad Valenciana (ISIC Nano program). S.H., K.O.R. and C.J.S. were supported by the Academy of Finland (projects 1256211, 1254065, 1259526) and University of Helsinki Research Funds (project 490076).Peer Reviewe

Plasmon dispersion in layered transition-metal dichalcogenides

Motivated by recent experiments, we perform a microscopic analysis of the dynamical charge response of layered transition-metal dichalcogenides that display a low-temperature charge-density wave (CDW) order. In agreement with measurements, our parameter-free results show a negative in-plane plasmon dispersion that switches to positive slope upon electron (or hole) doping. This finding is explained by the peculiar behavior of the intraband transitions, which are partially suppressed under doping, and it is not linked to the CDW order. Finally, in the direction perpendicular to the layers, we predict the reappearance around the Bragg reflections of the spectra of the first Brillouin zone, a clear effect of the crystal local-field impact. Our results give a general picture of the collective excitations in these materials suggesting a simpler reinterpretation of the experiments

Plasmon dispersion in layered transition-metal dichalcogenides

Motivated by recent experiments, we perform a microscopic analysis of the dynamical charge response of layered transition-metal dichalcogenides that display a low-temperature charge-density wave (CDW) order. In agreement with measurements, our parameter-free results show a negative in-plane plasmon dispersion that switches to positive slope upon electron (or hole) doping. This finding is explained by the peculiar behavior of the intraband transitions, which are partially suppressed under doping, and it is not linked to the CDW order. Finally, in the direction perpendicular to the layers, we predict the reappearance around the Bragg reflections of the spectra of the first Brillouin zone, a clear effect of the crystal local-field impact. Our results give a general picture of the collective excitations in these materials suggesting a simpler reinterpretation of the experiments. © 2012 American Physical Society.Financial support was provided by Spanish (FIS2011-65702-C02-01 and PIB2010US-00652), ACI-Promociona (ACI2009-1036), and Grupos Consolidados UPV/EHU del Gobierno Vasco (IT-319-07) grants and the European Research Council Advanced Grant DYNamo (ERC-2010-AdG, Proposal No. 267374).Peer Reviewe

Strong charge-transfer excitonic effects and Bose-Einstein exciton-condensate in graphane

Using first principles many-body theory methods (GW+BSE) we demonstrate that optical properties of graphane are dominated by localized charge-transfer excitations governed by enhanced electron correlations in a two-dimensional dielectric medium. Strong electron-hole interaction leads to the appearance of small radius bound excitons with spatially separated electron and hole, which are localized out-of-plane and in-plane, respectively. The presence of such bound excitons opens the path on excitonic Bose-Einstein condensate in graphane that can be observed experimentally.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

«Quando il tempo avrà scordato le presenti ingiustizie». le carceri borboniche nelle ‘Memorie’ di Sigismondo Castromediano

In 1848, Sigismondo Castromediano was accused of ploting against the Bourbon monarchy and was arrested, because of having protested in defense of the constitutional freedoms threatened by King Ferdinand ii. When he was incarcerated, he decided to give written testimony of the experiences lived during his imprisonment and of the physical and moral pains that happened to him and his companions. Therefore he wrote Prisons and political jailes. Memories of Duke Sigismondo Castromediano, a work that falls within the genre of Risorgimento’s memorials and which, after a complex publishing story, was published in two volumes, between 1895 and 1896. The Memories of Castromediano illustrate different aspects of the reality of Nineteenth century South Italy and riveal the political prisoners’ inhuman conditions in the Bourbon jailes of Naples, Procida, Montefusco and Montesarchio, where the Duke was detained for over ten years. They had the purpose of destroying everything in which the patriots believed: they were forced to mingle with criminals including Camorra’s members, deprived of all their possessions, physically tortured and abandoned to bad hygienic conditions that weakened their health till death. Castromediano’s work hands down to posterity a precise and detailed testimony of a dark page of history, not yet sufficiently detailed

Superconducting pairing mediated by spin fluctuations from first principles

Under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0 (CC-BY).-- et al.We present the derivation of an ab initio and parameter-free effective electron-electron interaction that goes beyond the screened random phase approximation and accounts for superconducting pairing driven by spin fluctuations. The construction is based on many-body perturbation theory and relies on the approximation of the exchange-correlation part of the electronic self-energy within time-dependent density functional theory. This effective interaction is included in an exchange-correlation kernel for superconducting density functional theory in order to achieve a completely parameter free superconducting gap equation. First results from applying the new functional to a simplified two-band electron gas model are consistent with experiments.Peer Reviewe