Rights statement: ©2012 American Physical Society
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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Electrically tunable band gap in silicene
AU - Drummond, Neil
AU - Zolyomi, Viktor
AU - Falko, Vladimir
N1 - ©2012 American Physical Society
PY - 2012/2/22
Y1 - 2012/2/22
N2 - We report calculations of the electronic structure of silicene and the stability of its weakly buckled honeycomb lattice in an external electric field oriented perpendicular to the monolayer of Si atoms. The electric field produces a tunable band gap in the Dirac-type electronic spectrum, the gap being suppressed by a factor of about eight by the high polarizability of the system. At low electric fields, the interplay between this tunable band gap, which is specific to electrons on a honeycomb lattice, and the Kane-Mele spin-orbit coupling induces a transition from a topological to a band insulator, whereas at much higher electric fields silicene becomes a semimetal.
AB - We report calculations of the electronic structure of silicene and the stability of its weakly buckled honeycomb lattice in an external electric field oriented perpendicular to the monolayer of Si atoms. The electric field produces a tunable band gap in the Dirac-type electronic spectrum, the gap being suppressed by a factor of about eight by the high polarizability of the system. At low electric fields, the interplay between this tunable band gap, which is specific to electrons on a honeycomb lattice, and the Kane-Mele spin-orbit coupling induces a transition from a topological to a band insulator, whereas at much higher electric fields silicene becomes a semimetal.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84857702775&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevB.85.075423
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevB.85.075423
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:84857702775
VL - 85
JO - Physical review B
JF - Physical review B
SN - 1550-235X
IS - 7
M1 - 075423
ER -