First-principles investigation of armchair stanene nanoribbons

In this study, we systematically investigated the structural, electronic and optical properties of armchair stanene nanoribbons (ASNRs) by using the first-principles calculations. First, we performed full geometry optimization calculations on various finite width ASNRs where all the edge Sn atoms are saturated by hydrogen atoms. The buckled honeycomb structure of two dimensional (2D) stanene is preserved, however the bond length between the edge Sn atoms is shortened to 2.77 Å compared to the remaining bonds with 2.82 Å length. The electronic properties of these nanoribbons strongly depend on their ribbon width. In general, band gap opens and increases with decreasing nanoribbon width indicating the quantum confinement effect. Consequently, the band gap values vary from a few meV exhibiting low-gap semiconductor (quasi-metallic) behavior to ～0.4–0.5 eV showing moderate semiconductor character. Furthermore, the band gap values are categorized into three groups according to modulo 3 of integer ribbon width N which is the number of Sn atoms along the width. In order to investigate the optical properties, we calculated the complex dielectric function and absorption spectra of ASNRs, they are similar to the one of 2D stanene. For light polarized along ASNRs, in general, largest peaks appear around 0.5 eV and 4.0 eV in the imaginary part of dielectric functions, and there are several smaller peaks between them. These major peaks redshifts, slightly to the lower energies of incident light with increasing nanoribbon width. On the other hand, for light polarized perpendicular to the ribbon, there is a small peak around 1.6 eV, then, there is a band formed from several peaks from 5 eV to ～7.5 eV, and the second one from 8 eV to ～9.5 eV. Moreover, the peak positions hardly move with varying nanoribbon width, which indicates that quantum confinement effect is not playing an essential role on the optical properties of armchair stanene nanoribbons. In addition, our calculations of the optical properties indicate the anisotropy with respect to the type of light polarization. This anisotropy is due to the quasi-2D nature of the nanoribbons.