Insights Into the Electronic Properties of PbBi Atomic Layers on Ge(111) and Si(111) Surfaces

Abstract

Co-adsorption of Pb and Bi onto Si(111) and Ge(111) surfaces has been found to result in formation of atomic-layer PbBi compounds having similar structures. These are two co-existing crystalline PbBi phases with 23×23 and 2 × 2 periodicities. Using density functional theory calculations, we found that these two phases present insulating and highly anisotropic metallic systems, respectively. However, electronic structure of the metallic 2 × 2-PbBi phase on Ge(111) appears qualitatively different from that on the Si(111). We investigated electronic properties of the PbBi compound considering the effects induced by the different supporting substrates, namely Si(111) and Ge(111). As a part of comparative study, we made the chemical-bonding analysis and examined a free-standing PbBi layer inspecting the dependence of its spectral characteristics on the compressive/tensile strain. We believe that the present findings will play an important role in the development of new electronic devices fabricated in the ultimate two-dimensional limit.

Emergence of quasi-1D spin-polarized states in ultrathin Bi films on InAs(111)A for spintronics applications

“…The discovery, characterization and control of electronic properties in low-dimensional materials reduced down to the atomic-scale limit are of special interest for nanoelectronics due to a number of fascinating effects such as unconventional superconductivity, 1 non-trivial topology, 2 flat bands, 3 the topological Hall effect, 4 strong spin-orbit coupling effects induced by the integration of heavy quasiparticles 5 or interface engineering, 6,7 highly anisotropic spin-polarized states [8][9][10] and other emergent effects promising for versatile applications in the nanotechnology industry. [11][12][13] It is noteworthy that spinorbit coupling (SOC) plays a decisive role in many electronic effects observed in quantum materials.…”

Peculiarities of the 7 × 7 to 5 × 5 Superstructure Transition during Epitaxial Growth of Germanium on Silicon (111) Surface

“…Moreover, Si(111) surface is used for epitaxy of GeSn [ 44 ] and SiGeSn [ 45 ] solid solution, as well as non-group-IV materials, for example, Au [ 46 , 47 ], Ga [ 48 ], GaN [ 49 , 50 ], GaSb [ 51 ] Bi 2 Te 3 [ 52 ], Se [ 53 ], etc. Finally, it is precisely on surfaces with crystallographic orientation (111) that it is possible to create graphene-like two-dimensional materials [ 48 , 52 , 54 , 55 , 56 ], which are highly anticipated for creating electronics of the future [ 57 , 58 ].…”

Periodic stacking of two dimensional Bismuth bi-layers in Bismuth stearate thin films

“…Therefore, most of the efforts in this direction involved the growth or deposition of Bi-bi-layer on suitable substrates [11]. Very recent theoretical and experimental investigations have demonstrated Bi-induced (both single and bi-layer) interesting modifications of the electronic states of the semiconductor substrate surface on which the single or bi-layer Bi is deposited [12,13]. In some cases, such a 2D single Bi layer on the substrate surface has been shown to exhibit exotic electronic states like one-dimensional electron channels [14] and 2D topological superconducting states [15].…”