arXiv subjects

Jinlong Yang

Publications and source records attributed to Jinlong Yang.

At least 127 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

arXiv2015

Single layer of MX3 (M=Ti, Zr; X=S, Se, Te): a new platform for nano-electronics and optics

A serial of two dimensional titanium and zirconium trichalcogenides nanosheets MX3 (M=Ti, Zr; X=S, Se, Te) are investigated based on first-principles calculations. The evaluated low cleavage energy indicates that stable two dimensional monolayers can be exfoliated from their bulk crystals in experiment. Electronic studies reveal very rich electronic properties in these monolayers, including metallic TiTe3 and ZrTe3, direct band gap semiconductor TiS3 and indirect band gap semiconductors TiSe3, ZrS3 and ZrSe3. The band gaps of all the semiconductors are between 0.57~1.90 eV, which implies their potential applications in nano-electronics. And the calculated effective masses demonstrate highly anisotropic conduction properties for all the semiconductors. Optically, TiS3 and TiSe3 monolayers exhibit good light absorption in the visible and near-infrared region respectively, indicating their potential applications in optical devices. In particular, the highly anisotropic optical absorption of TiS3 monolayer suggests it could be used in designing nano optical waveguide polarizers.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2014

Defect in Phosphorene

Defects are inevitably present in materials and always can affect their properties. Here, first-principles calculations are performed to systematically study the stability, structural and electronic properties of ten kinds of point defects in semiconducting phosphorene, including the Stone-Wales (SW-1 and SW-2) defect, single (SV59 and SV5566) and double vacancy (DV585-1, DV585-2, DV555777-1, DV555777-2, DV555777-3 and DV4104) defects. We find that these defects are all much easily created in phosphorene with higher areal density compared with graphene and silicene. They are easy distinguish each other and correlate with their defective atomic structures with simulated scanning tunneling microscopy images at positive bias. The SW, DV585-1, DV555777 and DV4104 defects have little effect on phosphorene's electronic properties and defective phosphorene monolayers still show semiconducting with similar band gap values to perfect phosphorene. The SV59 and DV585-2 defects can introduce unoccupied localized states into phosphorene's fundamental band gap. Specifically, the SV59 and 5566 defects can induce hole doping in phosphorene, and only the stable SV59 defect can result in local magnetic moments in phosphorene different from all other defects.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2014

Nano-scale displacement sensing based on Van der Waals interaction

We propose the nano-scale displacement sensor with high resolution for weak-force systems could be realized based on vertical stacked two-dimensional (2D) atomic corrugated layer materials bound through Van der Waals (VdW) interaction. Using first-principles calculations, we found the electronic structure of bi-layer blue phosphorus (BLBP) varies appreciably to both the lateral and vertical interlayer displacement. The variation of electronic structure due to the lateral displacement is attributed to the changing of the interlayer distance dz led by atomic layer corrugation, which is in a uniform picture with vertical displacement. Despite different stacking configurations, the change of in-direct band gap is proportional to dz-2. This stacking configuration independent dz-2 law is found also works for other graphene-like corrugated bi-layer materials, for example MoS2. By measuring the tunable electronic structure using absorption spectroscopy, the nano-scale displacement could be detected. BLBP represents a large family of bi-layer 2D atomic corrugated materials for which the electronic structure is sensitive to the interlayer vertical and lateral displacement, thus could be used for nano-scale displacement sensor. Since this kind of sensor is established on atomic layers coupled through VdW interaction, it provides unique applications in measurements of nano-scale displacement induced by tiny external force.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2014

Electrical Control of Carriers Spin Orientation in FeVTiSi Heusler Alloy

The direct control of carriers spin by electric field under room temperature is one of the most important challenges in the field of spintronics. For this purpose, we here propose a quaternary Heusler alloy FeVTiSi. Based on first principles calculations, FeVTiSi alloy is found to be an intrinsic bipolar magnetic semiconductor in which the valence band and conduction band approach the Fermi level through opposite spin channels. Thus FeVTiSi alloy can conduct completely spin-polarized currents with tunable spin-polarization direction simply by applying a gate voltage. Furthermore, by Monte Carlo simulations based on the classical Heisenberg Hamiltonian, the Curie temperature of FeVTiSi alloy is predicted to be as high as 1293 K, far above the room temperature. The bipolar magnetic semiconducting character and the high Curie temperature endow the FeVTiSi alloy great potentials in developing electrically controllable spintronic devices working at room temperature.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2014

Electronic Structures of Hybrid Graphene/Phosphorene Nanocomposite

Combining the electronic structures of two-dimensional monolayers in ultrathin hybrid nanocomposites is expected to display new properties beyond their simplex components. Here, first-principles calculations are performed to study the structural, electronic and optical properties of hybrid graphene and phosphorene nanocomposite. It turns out that weak van der Waals interactions dominate between graphene and phosphorene with their intrinsic electronic properties preserved. Hybrid graphene and phosphorene nanocomposite shows tunable band gaps at graphene's Dirac point and a transition from hole doing to electron doing for graphene as the interfacial distance decreases. Charge transfer between graphene to phosphorene induces interfacial electron-hole pairs in hybrid graphene and phosphorene nanocomposite with enhanced visible light response.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2014

First-Principles Study of Hybrid Graphene and MoS$_2$ Nanocomposites

Combining the electronic properties of graphene and molybdenum disulphide (MoS$_2$) monolayers in two-dimensional (2D) ultrathin hybrid nanocomposites have been synthesized experimentally to create excellent electronic, electrochemical, photovoltaic, photoresponsive and memory devices. Here, first-principles calculations are performed to investigate the electronic, electrical and optical properties in hybrid G/MoS$_2$ and G/MoS$_2$/G nanocomposites. It turns out that weak van der Waals interactions dominate between graphene and MoS$_2$ with their intrinsic electronic properties preserved. Interestingly, tunable p-type doping of graphene is very easy to achieve by applying electric fields perpendicular to hybrid G/MoS$_2$ and G/MoS$_2$/G nanocomposites, because electrons can easily transfer from the Dirac point of graphene to the conduction band of MoS$_2$ due to the work function of graphene close to the electronic affinity of MoS$_2$. Vertical electric fields can generate strong p-type but weak n-type doping of graphene, inducing electron-hole pairs in hybrid G/MoS$_2$/G sandwiched nanocomposites. Moreover, improved optical properties in hybrid G/MoS$_2$ and G/MoS$_2$/G nanocomposites are also expected with potential photovoltaic and photoresponsive applications.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2014

First-principles Study of the Interactions of Electron Donor and Acceptor Molecules with Phosphorene

Density functional theory calculations have been carried out to investigate single-layer phosphorene functionalized with two kinds of organic molecules, i.e. an electrophilic molecule tetracyano-p-quinodimethane (TCNQ) as electron acceptor and a nucleophilic molecule tetrathia-fulvalene (TTF) as electron donor. The TCNQ molecule introduces shallow acceptor states in the gap of phosphorene close to the valence band edge (VBE), which makes the doped system a p-type semiconductor. However, when the TTF molecule is adsorbed on the phosphorene, the occupied molecular states introduced into the gap are of deep donor states so that effective n-doping for transport cannot be realized. This disadvantageous situation can be amended by applying an external electric field perpendicular to the phosphorene surface with direction from the phosphorene to the TTF molecule, under which the TTF-introduced donor states move closer to conduction band edge (CBE) of the phosphorene and then the TTF-doped phosphorene system becomes an n-type semiconductor. The effective bipolar doping of single-layer phosphorene via molecular adsorption predicted above, especially n-doping against its native p-doping propensity, would broaden the way to the application of this new type of two-dimensional material in nanoelectronic and optoelectronic devices.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Electronic Structure of Large-Scale Graphene Nanoflakes

With the help of the recently developed SIESTA-PEXSI method [J. Phys.: Condens. Matter \textbf{26}, 305503 (2014)], we perform Kohn-Sham density functional theory (DFT) calculations to study the stability and electronic structure of hexagonal graphene nanoflakes (GNFs) with up to 11,700 atoms. We find the electronic properties of GNFs, including their cohesive energy, HOMO-LUMO energy gap, edge states and aromaticity, depend sensitively on the type of edges (ACGNFs and ZZGNFs), size and the number of electrons. We observe that, due to the edge-induced strain effect in ACGNFs, large-scale ACGNFs' cohesive energy decreases as their size increases. This trend does not hold for ZZGNFs due to the presence of many edge states in ZZGNFs. We find that the energy gaps $E_g$ of GNFs all decay with respect to $1/L$, where $L$ is the size of the GNF, in a linear fashion. But as their size increases, ZZGNFs exhibit more localized edge states. We believe the presence of these states makes their gap decrease more rapidly. In particular, when $L$ is larger than 6.40 $nm$, we find that ZZGNFs exhibit metallic characteristics. Furthermore, we find that the aromatic structures of GNFs appear to depend only on whether the system has $4N$ or $4N+2$ electrons, where $N$ is an integer.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2014

Bilayer Graphene Growth via a Penetration Mechanism

From both fundamental and technical points of view, a precise control of the layer number of graphene samples is very important. To reach this goal, atomic scale mechanisms of multilayer graphene growth on metal surfaces should be understood. Although it is a geometrically favorable pathway to transport carbon species to interface and then form a new graphene layer there, penetration of a graphene overlayer is not a chemically straightforward process. In this study, the possibility of different active species to penetrate a graphene overlayer on Cu(111) surface is investigated based on first principles calculations. It is found that carbon atom penetration can be realized via an atom exchange process, which leads to a new graphene growth mechanism. Based on this result, a bilayer graphene growth protocol is proposed to obtain high quality samples. Such a penetration possibility also provides a great flexibility for designed growth of graphene nanostructures.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2013

Orientation Sensitive Nonlinear Growth of Graphene: A Geometry-determined Epitaxial Growth Mechanism

Although the corresponding carbon-metal interactions can be very different, a similar nonlinear growth behavior of graphene has been observed for different metal substrates. To understand this interesting experimental observation, a multiscale $\lq\lq$standing-on-the-front" kinetic Monte Carlo study is performed. An extraordinary robust geometry effect is identified, which solely determines the growth kinetics and makes the details of carbon-metal interaction not relevant at all. Based on such a geometry-determined mechanism, epitaxial growth behavior of graphene can be easily predicted in many cases. As an example, an orientation-sensitive growth kinetics of graphene on Ir(111) surface has been studied. Our results demonstrate that lattice mismatch pattern at the atomic level plays an important role for macroscopic epitaxial growth.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2013

Control of Spin in La(Mn,Zn)AsO Alloy by Carrier Doping

The control of spin without magnetic field is one of challenges in developing spintronic devices. In an attempt to solve this problem, we proposed a novel hypothetic LaMn0.5Zn0.5AsO alloy from two experimentally synthesized rare earth element transition metal arsenide oxides, i.e. LaMnAsO and LaZnAsO. On the basis of the first-principles calculations with strong-correlated correction, we found that the LaMn0.5Zn0.5AsO alloy is an antiferromagnetic semiconductor at ground state, while bipolar magnetic semiconductor at ferromagnetic state. Both electron and hole doping in the LaMn0.5Zn0.5AsO alloy induces the transition from antiferromagnetic to ferromagnetic, as well as semiconductor to half metal. In particular, the spin-polarization direction is switchable depending on the doped carrier's type. As carrier doping can be realized easily in experiment by applying a gate voltage, the LaMn0.5Zn0.5AsO alloy stands for a promising spintronic material to generate and control the spin-polarized carriers with electric field.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2012

Hydrogenated Bilayer Wurtzite SiC Nanofilms: A Two-Dimensional Bipolar Magnetic Semiconductor Material

Recently, a new kind of spintronics materials, bipolar magnetic semiconductor (BMS), has been proposed. The spin polarization of BMS can be conveniently controlled by a gate voltage, which makes it very attractive in device engineering. Now, the main challenge is finding more BMS materials. In this article, we propose that hydrogenated wurtzite SiC nanofilm is a two-dimensional BMS material. Its BMS character is very robust under the effect of strain, substrate, or even a strong electric field. The proposed two-dimensional BMS material paves the way to use this promising new material in an integrated circuit.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2012

Bipolar Magnetic Semiconductors: A New Class of Spintronics Materials

Electrical control of spin polarization is very desirable in spintronics, since electric field can be easily applied locally in contrast with magnetic field. Here, we propose a new concept of bipolar magnetic semiconductor (BMS) in which completely spin-polarized currents with reversible spin polarization can be created and controlled simply by applying a gate voltage. This is a result of the unique electronic structure of BMS, where the valence and conduction bands possess opposite spin polarization when approaching the Fermi level. Our band structure and spin-polarized electronic transport calculations on semi-hydrogenated single-walled carbon nanotubes confirm the existence of BMS materials and demonstrate the electrical control of spin-polarization in them.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2012

New Insight into Electronic Shells of Metal Clusters: Analogues of Simple Molecules

Using Li clusters, a prototype of simple metals, as a test case, we theoretically find that metal clusters can mimic the behavior of simple molecules in electronic shells. It is found that Li14, Li10, and Li8 clusters are exact analogues of F2, N2, and CH4 molecules.

physics.atm-clus↗

arXiv2012

A First-principles Prediction of Two-Dimensional Superconductivity in Pristine B2C Single layer

Based on first-principles lattice dynamics and electron-phonon coupling calculations, B2C sheet is predicted to be a two-dimensional (2D) phonon-mediated superconductor with a relatively high transition temperature (Tc). The electron-phonon coupling parameter calculated is 0.92, and it is mainly contributed by low frequency out-of-plane phonon modes and electronic states with a π character. When the Coulomb pseudopotential is set to 0.10, the estimated temperature Tc is 19.2 K. To be best of our knowledge, B2C is the first pristine 2D superconductor with a Tc higher than the boiling point of liquid helium.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2012

Ordered Semiconducting Nitrogen-Graphene Alloys

The interaction between substitutional nitrogen atoms in graphene is studied by performing first principles calculations. The nearest neighbor interaction between nitrogen dopants is highly repulsive because of the strong electrostatic repulsion between nitrogen atoms, which prevents the full phase separation in nitrogen doped graphene. Interestingly, there are two relatively stable nitrogen-nitrogen pairs due to the anisotropy charge redistribution induced by nitrogen doping. We reveal two stable semiconducting ordered N doped graphene structures C3N and C12N through the cluster expansion technique and particle swarm optimization method. In particular, C12N has a direct band gap of 0.98 eV. The heterojunctions between C12N and graphene nanoribbons might be promising organic solar cells.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2011

Atomistic Mechanisms of Nonlinear Graphene Growth on Ir Surface

As a two-dimensional material, graphene can be naturally obtained via epitaxial growth on a suitable substrate. Growth condition optimization usually requires an atomistic level understanding of the growth mechanism. In this article, we perform a mechanistic study about graphene growth on Ir(111) surface by combining first principles calculations and kinetic Monte Carlo (kMC) simulations. Small carbon clusters on the Ir surface are checked first. On terraces, arching chain configurations are favorable in energy and they are also of relatively high mobilities. At steps, some magic two-dimensional compact structures are identified, which show clear relevance to the nucleation process. Attachment of carbon species to a graphene edge is then studied. Due to the effect of substrate, at some edge sites, atomic carbon attachment becomes thermodynamically unfavorable. Graphene growth at these difficult sites has to proceed via cluster attachment, which is the growth rate determining step. Based on such an inhomogeneous growth picture, kMC simulations are made possible by successfully separating different timescales, and they well reproduce the experimentally observed nonlinear kinetics. Different growth rates and nonlinear behaviors are predicted for different graphene orientations, which is consistent with available experimental results. Importantly, as a phenomenon originated from lattice mismatch, inhomogeneity revealed in this case is expected to be quite universal and it should also make important roles in many other hetero-epitaxial systems.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2011

Diamondization of Graphene and Graphene-BN Bilayers: Chemical Functionalization and Electronic Structure Engineering

In this article, based on first-principles calculations, we systematically study functionalization induced diamonization of graphene bilayer and graphene-BN hybrid bilayer. With single-side functionalization, the diamondized structures are magnetic semiconductor. Interestingly, if both sides of the bilayer are functionalized, diamondization becomes spontaneous without a barrier. On the other hand, when the bottom layer of the bilayer graphene is replaced by a single hexagonal BN layer, the diamondized structure becomes nonmagnetic metal. The tunable electronic and magnetic properties pave new avenues to construct graphene-based electronics and spintronics devices.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗