Silicene Beyond Mono-layers - Different Stacking Configurations And Their Properties

Abstract

We carry out a computational study on the geometric and electronic properties of multi-layers of silicene in different stacking configurations using a state-of-art abinitio density functional theory based calculations. In this work we investigate the evolution of these properties with increasing number of layers (n) ranging from 1 to 10. Though, mono-layer of silicene possesses properties similar to those of graphene, our results show that the geometric and electronic properties of multi-layers of silicene are strikingly different from those of multi-layers of graphene. We observe that there exist strong inter-layer covalent bondings between the layers in multi-layers of silicene as opposed to weak van der Waal's bonding which exists between the graphene layers. The inter-layer bonding strongly influences the geometric and electronic structures of these multi-layers. Like bi-layers of graphene, silicene with two different stacking configurations AA and AB exhibits linear and parabolic dispersions around the Fermi level, respectively. However, unlike graphene, for bi-layers of silicene, these dispersion curves are shifted in band diagram; this is due to the strong inter-layer bonding present in the latter. For n > 3, we study the geometric and electronic properties of multi-layers with four different stacking configurations namely, AAAA, AABB, ABAB and ABC. Our results on cohesive energy show that all the multi-layers considered are energetically stable. Furthermore, we find that the three stacking configurations (AAAA, AABB and ABC) containing tetrahedral coordination have much higher cohesive energy than that of Bernal (ABAB) stacking configuration. This is in contrast to the case of multi-layers of graphene where ABAB is reported to be the lowest energy configuration.

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References in corpus (8)

• Biased bilayer graphene: semiconductor with a gap tunable by electric field effect
• Unconventional quantum Hall effect and Berry's phase of 2pi in bilayer graphene
• Gate-induced insulating state in bilayer graphene devices
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• Valley-Polarized Metals and Quantum Anomalous Hall Effect in Silicene
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• Dynamical conductivity of AA-stacked bilayer graphene

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• Massless Dirac-Fermions in Stable Two-Dimensional Carbon-Arsenic Monolayer
• Ab initio Investigation on Hybrid Graphite-like Structure Made up of Silicene and Boron Nitride
• Stacking-configuration-enriched essential properties in bilayer silicenes
• Interband and intraband transition, dynamical polarization and screening of the monolayer and bilayer silicene in low-energy tight-binding model
• Electronic resistances of multilayered two-dimensional crystal junctions