Weak interaction between germanene and GaAs(0001) by H intercalation: A route to exfoliation
Abstract
Epitaxial germanene on a semiconducting GaAs(0001) substrate is studied by ab initio calculations. The germanene-substrate interaction is found to be strong for direct contact but can be substantially reduced by H intercalation at the interface. Our results indicate that it is energetically possible to take the germanene off the GaAs(0001) substrate. While mounted on the substrate, the electronic structure shows a distinct Dirac cone shift above the Fermi energy with a splitting of 175 meV. On the other hand, we find for a free standing sheet a band gap of 24 meV, which is due to the intrinsic spin orbit coupling.
- Publication:
-
Journal of Applied Physics
- Pub Date:
- November 2013
- DOI:
- 10.1063/1.4830016
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1310.7688
- Bibcode:
- 2013JAP...114r4307K
- Keywords:
-
- ab initio calculations;
- elemental semiconductors;
- energy gap;
- germanium;
- intercalation compounds;
- semiconductor epitaxial layers;
- spin-orbit interactions;
- 71.20.Mq;
- 71.70.Ej;
- 71.15.-m;
- Elemental semiconductors;
- Spin-orbit coupling Zeeman and Stark splitting Jahn-Teller effect;
- Methods of electronic structure calculations;
- Condensed Matter - Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
- E-Print:
- 11 pages, 3 figures, and 1 table