Abstract: We study electron tunneling through a planar magnetic and electric barrier on the surface of a three-dimensional topological insulator. For the double barrier structures, we find (i) a directional-dependent tunneling which is sensitive to the magnetic field configuration and the electric gate voltage, (ii) a spin rotation controlled by the magnetic field and the gate voltage, (iii) many Fabry-Pérot resonances in the transmission determined by the distance between the two barriers, and (iv) the electrostatic potential can enhance the difference in the transmission between the two magnetization configurations, and consequently lead to a giant magnetoresistance. Points (i), (iii), and (iv) are alike with that in graphene stemming from the same linear-dispersion relations.

Abstract: Small numbers N < 5 of two-dimensional Coulomb-interacting electrons trapped in a parabolic potential placed in a perpendicular magnetic field are investigated. The reduced wave function of this system, which is obtained by fixing the positions of N-1 electrons, exhibits strong correlations between the electrons and the zeros. These zeros axe often called vortices. An exact-diagonalization scheme is used to obtain the wave functions and the results are compared with results obtained from the recently proposed rotating electron molecule (REM) theory. We find that the vortices gather around the fixed electrons and repel each other, which is to a much lesser extend so for the REM results.

Abstract: Zigzag graphene nanoribbons patterned on graphane are studied using spin-polarized ab initio calculations. We found that the electronic and magnetic properties of the graphene/graphane superlattice strongly depends on the degree of hydrogenation at the interfaces between the two materials. When both zigzag interfaces are fully hydrogenated, the superlattice behaves like a freestanding zigzag graphene nanoribbon, and the magnetic ground state is antiferromagnetic. When one of the interfaces is half hydrogenated, the magnetic ground state becomes ferromagnetic, and the system is very close to being a half metal with possible spintronics applications whereas the magnetic ground state of the superlattice with both interfaces half hydrogenated is again antiferromagnetic. In this last case, both edges of the graphane nanoribbon also contribute to the total magnetization of the system. All the spin-polarized ground states are semiconducting, independent of the degree of hydrogenation of the interfaces. The ab initio results are supplemented by a simple tight-binding analysis that captures the main qualitative features. Our ab initio results show that patterned hydrogenation of graphene is a promising way to obtain stable graphene nanoribbons with interesting technological applications.

Abstract: The electronic and optical properties of zincblende nanowires are investigated in the presence of a uniform magnetic field directed along the [001] growth direction within the k . p method. We focus our numerical study on core-shell nanowires consisting of the III-V materials GaAs, AlxGa1-xAs and AlyGa1-y/0.51In0.49P. Nanowires with electrons confined in the core exhibit a Fock-Darwin-like spectrum, whereas nanowires with electrons confined in the shell show Aharonov-Bohm oscillations. Thus, by properly choosing the core and the shell materials of the nanowire, the optical properties in a magnetic field can be tuned in very different ways.

Abstract: A tight-binding model is used to study the energy band of graphene and graphene ribbon under simple shear strain. The ribbon consists of lines of carbon atoms in an armchair or zigzag orientation where a simple shear strain is applied in the x-direction keeping the atomic distances in the y-direction unchanged. Such modification in the lattice gives an energy band that differs in several aspects from the one without any shear and with pure shear. The changes in the spectrum depend on the line displacement of the ribbon, and also on the modified hopping parameter. It is also shown that this simple shear strain tunes the electronic properties of both graphene and graphene ribbon, opening and closing energy gaps for different displacements of the system. The modified density of states is also shown.

Abstract: The electronic properties of graphene nano-flakes (GNFs) with different edge passivation are investigated by using density functional theory. Passivation with F and H atoms is considered: C-Nc X-Nx (X = F or H). We studied GNFs with 10 < N-c < 56 and limit ourselves to the lowest energy configurations. We found that: (i) the energy difference Delta between the highest occupied molecular orbital and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital decreases with N-c, (ii) topological defects (pentagon and heptagon) break the symmetry of the GNFs and enhance the electric polarization, (iii) the mutual interaction of bilayer GNFs can be understood by dipole-dipole interaction which were found sensitive to the relative orientation of the GNFs, (iv) the permanent dipoles depend on the edge terminated atom, while the energy gap is independent of it, and (v) the presence of heptagon and pentagon defects in the GNFs results in the largest difference between the energy of the spin-up and spin-down electrons which is larger for the H-passivated GNFs as compared to F-passivated GNFs. Our study shows clearly the effect of geometry, size, termination, and bilayer on the electronic properties of small GNFs. This study reveals important features of graphene nano-flakes which can be detected using Raman spectroscopy. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.

Abstract: The electronic properties of two-dimensional hexagonal germanium, so called germanene, are investigated using first-principles simulations. Consistent with previous reports, the surface is predicted to have a poor metallic behavior, i.e., being metallic with a low density of states at the Fermi level. It is found that biaxial compressively strained germanene is a gapless semiconductor with linear energy dispersions near the K pointslike graphene. The calculated Fermi velocity of germanene is almost independent of the strain and is about 1.7×10⁶ m/s, quite comparable to the value in graphene.

Abstract: We examine the electronic structure of the family of ternary zinc spinel oxides ZnX2O4 (X=Al, Ga and In). The band gap of ZnAl2O4 calculated using density functional theory (DFT) is 4.25 eV and is overestimated compared with the experimental value of 3.83.9 eV. The DFT band gap of ZnGa2O4 is 2.82 eV and is underestimated compared with the experimental value of 4.45.0 eV. Since DFT typically underestimates the band gap in the oxide system, the experimental measurements for ZnAl2O4 probably require a correction. We use two first-principles techniques capable of describing accurately the excited states of semiconductors, namely the GW approximation and the modified BeckeJohnson (MBJ) potential approximation, to calculate the band gap of ZnX2O4. The GW and MBJ band gaps are in good agreement with each other. In the case of ZnAl2O4, the predicted band gap values are >6 eV, i.e. ~2 eV larger than the only reported experimental value. We expect future experimental work to confirm our results. Our calculations of the electron effective masses and the second band gap indicate that these compounds are very good candidates to act as transparent conducting host materials.

Abstract: The electronic structure of GaAs/AlxGa1−xAs and AlxGa1−xAs/GaAs core-shell nanowires grown in the [001] direction is studied. The k⋅p method with the 6×6 Kohn-Lüttinger Hamiltonian, taking into account the split-off band is used. The variation in the energy level dispersion, the spinor contribution to the ground state and the optical interband absorption are studied. For some range of parameters the top of the valence band exhibits a camelback structure which results in an extra peak in the optical absorption.

Abstract: We present a theoretical study of the electronic structure of a heavily Si delta-doped layer in a GaAs/AlxGa1-xAs/GaAs quantum barrier. In this class of structures the effect of DX centers on the electronic properties can be tuned by changing the AlxGa1-xAs barrier width and/or the Al concentration, which leads to a lowering of the DX level with respect to the Fermi energy without disturbing the wave functions much. A self-consistent approach is developed in which the effective confinement potential and the Fermi energy of the system, the energies, the wave functions, and the electron densities of the discrete subbands have been obtained as a function of both the material parameters of the samples and the experimental conditions. The effect of DX centers on such structures at nonzero temperature and under an external pressure is investigated for three different models: (1) the DX(nc)(0) model with no correlation effects, (2) the d(+)/DX(0) model, and (3) the d(+)/DX(-) model with inclusion of correlation effects. In the actual calculation, influences of the background accepters, the discontinuity of the effective mass of the electrons at the interfaces of the different materials, band nonparabolicity, and the exchange-correlation energy of the electrons have been taken into account. We have found that (1) introducing a quantum barrier into delta-doped GaAs makes it possible to control the energy gaps between different electronic; subbands; (2) the electron wave functions are mon spread out when the repellent effect of the barriers is increased as compared to those in delta-doped GaAs; (3) increasing the quantum-barrier height and/or the application of hydrostatic pressure are helpful to experimentally observe the effect of the DX centers through a decrease of the total free-electron density; and (4) the correlation effects of the charged impurities are important for the systems under study.

Abstract: The electronic and optical properties of InAs/GaSb core-shell nanowires are investigated within the effective mass k . p approach. These systems have a broken band gap, which results in spatially separated confinement of electrons and holes. We investigated these structures for different sizes of the InAs and GaSb core and shell radius. We found that for certain configurations, the conduction band states penetrate into the valence band states resulting in a negative band gap (E-g < 0), which leads to a conduction band ground state that lies below the valence band ground state at the Gamma point. For certain core-shell wires, only one conduction band state penetrates into the valence band and in this case, a minigap Delta opens up away from the Gamma point and as a consequence the electronic properties of the nanowire now depend on both E-g and Delta values.

Abstract: The multiband effective-mass model of cylindrical self-assembled quantum dots in a magnetic field normal to the layer of the quantum dots is presented. The strain distribution is computed by the valence force field method. The strain-dependent multiband Hamiltonian is modified into an axially symmetric form, which commutes with the total angular momentum F-2 = fh. where f denotes the total magnetic quantum number. The heavy hole and the light hole parts in the mixed hole state are resolved. It is found that the heavy hole component dominates in the ground states for both f = 1/2 and 3/2. The electronic structure exhibits numerous anticrossings between the hole levels. The Zeeman splitting between the +\f\ and -\f\ states is also computed. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.