Omnidirectional transmission and reflection of pseudospin-1 Dirac fermions in a Lieb superlattice

We study the behavior of pseudospin-1 Dirac fermions in a Lieb lattice subjected to an external periodic potential. It is found that there exists a zero-averaged wave-number passband at the incident energy corresponding to half of the potential step, in contrast to zero-averaged wave-number gap in graphene superlattices. By tuning the sublattice site-energy, the passband can be turned into an omnidirectional gap. Consequently, a transformation from omnidirectional transmission to reflection, accompanied with a switch of conductance from maximum to zero can be realized easily. It is expected that the controllable properties are useful for some applications in optical or electronic devices.     

Broad omnidirectional high-precision filters design using genetic algorithm

An application of the genetic algorithm in designing omnidirectional optical filters is reported in this paper. Concerning different periodic numbers and thickness ratios in the heterostructure, we gave some optimization examples and finally achieved a photonic heterostructure with very broad omnidirectional filter bandwidth as well as a very narrow transmission window. And it is found that when the normal incident beam is tilted at a negligibly small angle, the perfect transmittance peak will vanish. Hence, this heterostructure can be regarded as omnidirectional high-precision filters with potential application in optical filters, optical switches, and many other optical telecommunication areas.     

Electronic band gap and transport in graphene superlattice with a Gaussian profile potential voltage

We study the electronic properties for the graphene-based one-dimensional superlattices, whose potential voltages vary according to the envelope of a Gaussian function. It is found that an unusual Dirac point exists and its location is exactly associated with a zero-averaged wave number （zero-re） gap. This zero-k gap is less sensitive to incident angle and lattice constants, properties opposing those of Bragg gap. The defect mode appearing inside the zero-l gap has an effect on transmission, conductance, and shot noise, which will be useful for further investigation.     

Optical and electronic properties of (GaAs)n / (InAs)n(001) superlattices: LMTO-ASA approach

The optical and electronic properties of (GaAs)_n/(InAs)_n superlattices are calculated by means of LMTO-ASA method. The too small band gap problem of bulk material and superlattices is corrected by adding to the effective potentials an additional external potential that is sharply peaked at the atomic sites. The results show that the optical properties of GaAs/InAs(001) superlattices are about average of that of two bulks of GaAs and InAs.     

Polarization-independent omnidirectional band gaps in heterostructures containing negative-index materials

We proposed a type of heterostructure by combining two photonic crystals (PCs) consisting of alternating negative-index materials and positive-index materials layers. It is demonstrated by transfer matrix method that the proposed structure has a polarization-independent omnidirectional band gap (OBG), which is independent of the incident angle for both TE and TM polarizations. Compared to a single PC, the frequency range of the OBG in a heterostructure can be notably enlarged. Such a structure has potential applications in improving planar microcavities, optical fibers, and Fabry-Pérot resonators, etc.     

Engineering the electronic structure of graphene superlattices via Fermi velocity modulation

Graphene superlattices have attracted much research interest in the last years, since it is possible to manipulate the electronic properties of graphene in these structures. It has been verified that extra Dirac points appear in the electronic structure of the system. The electronic structure in the vicinity of these points has been studied for a gapless and gapped graphene superlattice and for a graphene superlattice with a spatially modulated energy gap. In each case a different behavior was obtained. In this work we show that via Fermi velocity engineering it is possible to tune the electronic properties of a graphene superlattice to match all the previous cases studied. We also obtained new features of the system never observed before, reveling that the electronic structure of graphene is very sensitive to the modulation of the Fermi velocity. The results obtained here are relevant for the development of novel graphene-based electronic devices.     

混合准周期异质结构的带隙补偿与展宽

基于一维光子晶体异质结构的多帯隙交叠补偿思想,提出了一种新颖的混合准周期级联结构,用于扩大全方位光子带隙.该全方位反射器结构由Fibonacci准周期结构和Thue-Morse准周期结构级联构成,研究表明,相比单种准周期结构,其全方位光子带隙宽度有显著提高.系统研究了结构参数(如周期数、阶数、介质折射率和厚度)对该结构光子带隙的影响,通过与周期结构带隙特性的比较,分析了准周期结构易于实现多带隙交叠的原因,为更复杂带隙结构的补偿和展宽奠定了设计基础.     

Inhomogenous electronic structure, transport gap, and percolation threshold in disordered bilayer graphene

The inhomogenous real-space electronic structure of gapless and gapped disordered bilayer graphene is calculated in the presence of quenched charge impurities. For gapped bilayer graphene, we find that for current experimental conditions the amplitude of the fluctuations of the screened disorder potential is of the order of (or often larger than) the intrinsic gap Δ induced by the application of a perpendicular electric field. We calculate the crossover chemical potential Δ(cr), separating the insulating regime from a percolative regime in which less than half of the area of the bilayer graphene sample is insulating. We find that most of the current experiments are in the percolative regime with Δ(cr)?Δ. The huge suppression of Δ(cr) compared with Δ provides a possible explanation for the large difference between the theoretical band gap Δ and the experimentally extracted transport gap.     

Tunable electronic and optical properties of SnC/BAs heterostructure by external electric field and vertical strain

Based on the first-principles method, we investigate the electronic structure of SnC/BAs van der Waals (vdW) heterostructure and find that it has an intrinsic type-II band alignment with a direct band gap of 0.22 eV, which favors the separation of photogenerated electron–hole pairs. The band gap can be effectively modulated by applying vertical strain and external electric field, displaying a large alteration of band gap via the strain and experiencing an indirect-to-direct band gap transition. Moreover, the band gap of the heterostructure varies almost linearly with external electric field, and the semiconductor-to-metal transition can be realized in the presence of a strong electric field. The calculated band alignment and the optical absorption reveal that the SnC/BAs heterostructure could present an excellent light-harvesting performance. Our designed heterostructure is expected to have great potential applications in nanoelectronic devices and photovoltaics and optical properties.     

Zero differential resistance of a two-dimensional electron gas in a one-dimensional periodic potential at high filling factors

The nonlinear magnetotransport of a two-dimensional (2D) electron gas in one-dimensional lateral superlattices based on a selectively doped GaAs/AlAs heterostructure is studied. The one-dimensional potential modulation of the 2D electron gas is performed by means of a series of metallic strips formed on the surface of a heterostructure with the use of electron beam lithography and a lift-off process. The dependence of the differential resistance r_xx on the magnetic field B < 1.5T in superlattices with the period a = 400 nm at a temperature of T = 4.2 K is investigated. It is found that electronic states with r_xx ≈ 0 appear in one-dimensional lateral superlattices in crossed electric and magnetic fields. It is shown that states with r_xx ≈ 0 in 2D electronic systems with one-dimensional periodic modulation arise at the minima of commensurability oscillations of the magnetoresistance.     

NMR parameters in gapped graphene systems

We calculate the nuclear spin-lattice relaxation time and the Knight shift for the case of gapped graphene systems. Our calculations consider both the massive and massless gap scenarios. Both the spin-lattice relaxation time and the Knight shift depend on temperature, chemical potential, and the value of the electronic energy gap. In particular, at the Dirac point, the electronic energy gap has stronger effects on the system nuclear magnetic resonance parameters in the case of the massless gap scenario. Differently, at large values of the chemical potential, both gap scenarios behave in a similar way and the gapped graphene system approaches a Fermi gas from the nuclear magnetic resonance parameters point of view. Our results are important for nuclear magnetic resonance measurements that target the ¹³C active nuclei in graphene samples.     

剪切形变对硼氮掺杂碳纳米管超晶格电子结构和光学性能的影响

碳纳米管作为最先进的纳米材料之一, 在电子和光学器件领域有潜在的应用前景, 因此引起了广泛关注. 掺杂、变形及形成超晶格为调制纳米管电子、光学性质提供了有效途径. 为了理解相关机理, 利用第一性原理方法研究了不同剪切形变下扶手椅型硼氮交替环状掺杂碳纳米管超晶格的空间结构、电子结构和光学性质. 研究发现, 剪切形变会改变碳纳米管的几何结构, 当剪切形变大于12%后, 其几何结构有较大畸变. 结合能计算表明, 剪切形变改变了掺杂碳纳米管超晶格的稳定性, 剪切形变越大, 稳定性越低. 电荷布居分析表明, 硼氮掺杂碳纳米管超晶格中离子键和共价键共存. 能带和态密度分析发现硼氮交替环状掺杂使碳纳米管超晶格从金属转变为半导体. 随着剪切形变加剧, 纳米管超晶格能隙逐渐减小, 当剪切形变大于12%后, 碳纳米管又从半导体变为金属. 在光学性能中, 剪切形变的硼氮掺杂碳纳米管超晶格的光吸收系数及反射率峰值较未受剪切形变的均减小, 且均出现了红移.     

Electronic structure of (BP)n/(BAs)n (0 0 1) superlattices

An accurate ab initio full potential linear muffin-tin orbital method has been used to investigate the structural, electronic and optical properties of BP, BAs and their (BP)_n/(BAs)_n superlattices (SLs). The exchange-correlation potential is treated with the local density approximation of Perdew and Wang (LDA-PW). The calculated structural properties of BP and BAs compounds are in good agreement with available experimental and theoretical data. It is found that BP, BAs and their alloys exhibit an indirect fundamental band gap. The fundamental band gap decreases with increasing the number of monolayer n. The optical properties show that the static dielectric constant significantly decreases in superlattices compared to their binary compounds.     

GAAS-ALGAS superlattice band structure under hydrostatic pressure: An analysis based on the envelope function approximation

We propose new interface connection rules to determine the electronic properties of superlattices. Although similar to the so-called two-band model, these new rules are more general. Our approach is used to study the electronic structure of superlattices under high hydrostatic pressure. In our model, the influence of the pressure is taken into account by considering the modification of the energy gap and layer width of each material separately. It is demonstrated that the low value observed in the experimental determination of the pressure coefficient θ^SL of the GaAs layers is a consequence of the increasing rigidity of the energy band for energies away from the edges. Moreover the apparent homogeneity of θ^SL (GaAs) is the result of two opposing effects—the variation of the band rigidity and the narrowing of the layer thickness—which compensate each other.     

利用遗传算法设计可见光波段全能反射器

介绍了遗传算法在设计宽频带全能反射器中的应用.设计的关键是通过遗传算法寻找到不同一维准周期光子晶体间的最佳组合方式以及光学厚度以便形成一个光子晶体异质结.利用传输矩阵法分析了一维准周期系统中的电磁传输特性.计算结果表明,准周期光子晶体的全方向反射带宽受晶胞单元以及周期数的影响.根据这些规律,用遗传算法成功地优化了光子晶体异质结的结构并得到两种适用于可见光波段的高性能全能反射器.例如结构为(HLLHL)13(HL)13( LHL)15 ［注: nL=1.46,nH=2.6,dL=0.218λ0/nL且dH=0.201λ0/nH］的反射器在可见光波段内的全方向反射带宽达到了88.42% (446 nm~779 nm).     

Resonant peak splitting in graphene superlattices with one-dimensional periodic potentials

We have investigated theoretically the resonant tunneling phenomenon of Dirac electrons through graphene superlattices with periodic potentials of square barriers. It is found that there are two resonance conditions for the graphene superlattices. Some of the resonance transmission peaks present N – 1-fold resonance splitting for $ N{\text{-barriers}} $ , which is the analogy of the resonance splitting in semiconductor superlattices. The resonance splitting effect depends on the incidence angle rather than the height and width of the potential. However, there is no explicit splitting rule for the conductance and shot noise, which is different from the magnetic case. Furthermore, the resonant splitting rule of the transmission is not sensitive to the shape of the potential barrier. These properties in graphene superlattices may lead to potential applications in graphene-based electron devices.     

Electron spectrum of double-sheet graphene with broken equivalence of sublattices within layers

The electron spectrum of double-sheet graphene composed of sheets with broken equivalence of sublattices, i.e., of gapped (with the gap width 2Δ) graphene sheets, has been calculated. There is a band gap with the width 2Δ in the spectrum of such a system. The influence of the transverse electric field on the electron spectrum of this system has been investigated. It has been shown that the gap width in the presence of the electric field is proportional to the difference |U ? Δ|; i.e., the gap vanishes at U = Δ. This effect can be suggested as an effective method of eliminating an unwanted gap in the spectrum.     

FP-LMTO study of structural,electronic and optical properties of wurtzite (CdS)n/(CdSe)n superlattices

In this paper, we have conducted a first-principles study of the structural, electronic and optical properties of (CdS)_n/(CdSe)_n superlattices (where n is numbers of monolayers) in the wurtzite phase (B4), using the Full-Potential Linear Muffin-Tin Orbital (FP-LMTO) method within the Local Density Approximation (LDA) technique, in order to describe the exchange correlation energy. The calculated electronic properties indicate that all (CdS)_n/(CdSe)_n superlattices configurations, possess a semiconductor behavior with same energy gaps. We have seen more carefully and accurately that the different superlattices configurations have no effect on the electronic properties; in particular, we did not observe any dependence between the band gap behavior and the used layers.     

Enlargement of the omnidirectional reflectance gap in one-dimensional photonic crystal heterostructure containing double negative index material

In this paper, we investigate by theoretical analysis a way to enlarge the frequency range of band gap in one-dimensional heterostructure photonic crystal (PC) made of two PCs alternate stacked by conventional and double negative index material. The numerical results by scattering matrix method (SMM) show that, for the proposed PC with appropriate parameters, there is an omnidirectional photonic band gap (OBG), which is insensitive to incident angle and polarization. The thickness ratio of layers in the second PC is the inverse and identical of that in the first PC, respectively. Two PCs form the PC heterostructures. Moreover, we demonstrate the existence of OBG and notable enlargement of the frequency range of the OBG in proposed PC heterostructure. The reason is that the pass band of one of the two PCs falls into the forbidden band of another PC. Decreasing the thickness of layers but not changing the thickness ratio of layers in the second PC, the frequency range of OBG keeps invariant. However, with the increasing of thickness of layers, the frequency range of OBG gets narrow.