First-Principles Study of Intrinsic Point Defects of Monolayer GeS

The properties of six kinds of intrinsic point defects in monolayer GeS are systematically investigated using the“transfer to real state”model,based on density functional theory.We find that Ge vacancy is the dominant intrinsic acceptor defect,due to its shallow acceptor transition energy level and lowest formation energy,which is primarily responsible for the intrinsic p-type conductivity of monolayer GeS,and effectively explains the native p-type conductivity of GeS observed in experiment.The shallow acceptor transition level derives from the local structural distortion induced by Coulomb repulsion between the charged vacancy center and its surrounding anions.Furthermore,with respect to growth conditions,Ge vacancies will be compensated by fewer n-type intrinsic defects under Ge-poor growth conditions.Our results have established the physical origin of the intrinsic p-type conductivity in monolayer GeS,as well as expanding the understanding of defect properties in lowdimensional semiconductor materials.     

Quantum Mechanical Study on Tunnelling and Ballistic Transport of Nanometer Si MOSFETs

Using self-consistent calculations of million-atom SchrSdinger-Poisson equations, we investigate the I-V characteristics of tunnelling and ballistic transport of nanometer metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors （MOSFET） based on a full 3-D quantum mechanical simulation under nonequilibtium condition. Atomistic empirical pseudopotentials are used to describe the device Hamiltonian and the underlying bulk band structure. We find that the ballistic transport dominates the I-V characteristics, whereas the effects of tunnelling cannot be neglected with the maximal value up to 0.8mA/μm when the channel length of MOSFET scales down to 25 nm. The effects of tunnelling transport lower the threshold voltage Vt. The ballistic current based on fully 3-D quantum mechanical simulation is relatively large and has small on-off ratio compared with results derived from the calculation methods of Luo et al.     

Group velocity matters for accurate prediction of phonon-limited carrier mobility

First-principles approaches have recently been developed to replace the phenomenological modeling approaches with adjustable parameters for calculating carrier mobilities in semiconductors. However, in addition to the high computational cost, it is still a challenge to obtain accurate mobility for carriers with a complex band structure, e.g., hole mobility in common semiconductors. Here, we present a computationally efficient approach using isotropic and parabolic bands to approximate the anisotropy valence bands for evaluating group velocities in the first-principles calculations. This treatment greatly reduces the computational cost in two ways: relieves the requirement of an extremely dense κ mesh to obtain a smooth change in group velocity, and reduces the 5-dimensional integral to 3-dimensional integral. Taking Si and SiC as two examples, we find that this simplified approach reproduces the full first-principles calculation for mobility. If we use experimental effective masses to evaluate the group velocity, we can obtain hole mobility in excellent agreement with experimental data over a wide temperature range. These findings shed light on how to improve the first-principles calculations towards predictive carrier mobility in high accuracy.     

Atomic-Ordering-Induced Quantum Phase Transition between Topological Crystalline Insulator and Z_2 Topological Insulator

Topological phase transition in a single material usually refers to transitions between a trivial band insulator and a topological Dirac phase, and the transition may also occur between different classes of topological Dirac phases.It is a fundamental challenge to realize quantum transition between Z_2 nontrivial topological insulator(TI) and topological crystalline insulator(TCI) in one material because Z_2 TI and TCI have different requirements on the number of band inversions. The Z_2 TIs must have an odd number of band inversions over all the time-reversal invariant momenta, whereas the newly discovered TCIs, as a distinct class of the topological Dirac materials protected by the underlying crystalline symmetry, owns an even number of band inversions. Taking PbSnTe_2 alloy as an example, here we demonstrate that the atomic-ordering is an effective way to tune the symmetry of the alloy so that we can electrically switch between TCI phase and Z_2 TI phase in a single material. Our results suggest that the atomic-ordering provides a new platform towards the realization of reversibly switching between different topological phases to explore novel applications.     

Structural Phase Transition and a Mutation of Electron Mobility in Zn_xCd_(1-x)O Alloys

We investigate the electronic structures and phase stability of ZnO, CdO and the related alloys in rocksalt(B1)and wurzite(B4) crystal, using the first-principle density functional theory within the hybrid functional approximation. By varying the concentration of Zn components from 0% to 100%, we find that the Zn_xCd(1-x)O alloy undergoes a phase transition from octahedron to tetrahedron at x = 0.32, in agreement with the recent experimental findings. The phase transition leads to a mutation of the electron mobility originated from the changes of the effective mass. Our results qualify Zn O/Cd O alloy as an attractive candidate for photo-electrochemical and solar cell power applications.