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Ultrathin GeAsSe and SnSbTe sheets own desirable electronic and optical properties. Monolayer GeAsSe and SnSbTe sheets can be easily exfoliated from the bulk crystals due to the weak interlayer binding energies. These sheets are energetically favorable and show excellent dynamical and thermal stability. Importantly, monolayer GeAsSe and SnSbTe possess moderate direct band gaps and superior hole mobility up to 20 000 cm2.V-1. [Detail] ...
Two-dimensional (2D) MoS2 is used as a catalyst or support and has received increased research interest because of its superior structural and electronic properties compared with those of bulk structures. In this article, we illustrate the active sites of 2D MoS2 and various strategies for enhancing its intrinsic catalytic activity. The recent advances in the use of 2D MoS2-based materials for applications such as thermocatalysis, electrocatalysis, and photocatalysis are discussed. We also discuss the future opportunities and challenges for 2D MoS2-based materials, in both fundamental research and industrial applications.
High carrier mobility and a direct semiconducting band gap are two key properties of materials for electronic device applications. Using first-principles calculations, we predict two types of two-dimensional semiconductors, ultrathin GeAsSe and SnSbTe nanosheets, with desirable electronic and optical properties. Both GeAsSe and SnSbTe sheets are energetically favorable, with formation energies of −0.19 and −0.09 eV/atom, respectively, and have excellent dynamical and thermal stability, as determined by phonon dispersion calculations and Born–Oppenheimer molecular dynamics simulations. The relatively weak interlayer binding energies suggest that these monolayer sheets can be easily exfoliated from the bulk crystals. Importantly, monolayer GeAsSe and SnSbTe possess direct band gaps (2.56 and 1.96 eV, respectively) and superior hole mobility (~20 000 cm2·V−1·s−1), and both exhibit notable absorption in the visible region. A comparison of the band edge positions with the redox potentials of water reveals that layered GeAsSe and SnSbTe are potential photocatalysts for water splitting. These exceptional properties make layered GeAsSe and SnSbTe promising candidates for use in future high-speed electronic and optoelectronic devices.
Integration of heterogenous materials produces compelling physical phenomena and increased performance of optoelectronic devices. In this work, we integrate CsPbBr3 microplate with WS2 monolayer to investigate the interfacial carrier transfer mechanism in the heterojunction. The quenching of photoluminescence (PL) emission from CsPbBr3 and WS2 after heterostructure formation indicates efficient charge transfer in the junction. Low-temperature PL spectra reveal that the decreasing PL of WS2 arises from the vanishing of biexcitons. Photodetection based on the WS2/CsPbBr3 heterostructure is demonstrated. The higher performance from the junction further certifies the occurrence of charge transfer in the heterojunction.
The explosion of interest in two-dimensional van der Waals materials has been in many ways driven by their layered geometry. This feature makes possible numerous avenues for assembling and manipulating the optical and electronic properties of these materials. In the specific case of monolayer transition metal dichalcogenide semiconductors, the direct band gap combined with the flexibility for manipulation of layers has made this class of materials promising for optoelectronics. Here, we review the properties of these layered materials and the various means of engineering these properties for optoelectronics. We summarize approaches for control that modify their structural and chemical environment, and we give particular detail on the integration of these materials into engineered optical fields to control their optical characteristics. This combination of controllability from their layered surface structure and photonic environment provide an expansive landscape for novel optoelectronic phenomena.
Two-dimensional (2D) materials generally have unusual physical and chemical properties owing to the confined electro-strong interaction in a plane and can exhibit obvious anisotropy and a significant quantum-confinement effect, thus showing great promise in many fields. Some 2D materials, such as graphene and MXenes, have recently exhibited extraordinary electromagnetic-wave shielding and absorbing performance, which is attributed to their special electrical behavior, large specific surface area, and low mass density. Compared with traditional microwave attenuating materials, 2D materials have several obvious inherent advantages. First, similar to other nanomaterials, 2D materials have a very large specific surface area and can provide numerous interfaces for the enhanced interfacial polarization as well as the reflection and scattering of electromagnetic waves. Second, 2D materials have a particular 2D morphology with ultrasmall thickness, which is not only beneficial for the penetration and dissipation of electromagnetic waves through the 2D nanosheets, giving rise to multiple reflections and the dissipation of electromagnetic energy, but is also conducive to the design and fabrication of various well-defined structures, such as layer-by-layer assemblies, core–shell particles, and porous foam, for broadband attenuation of electromagnetic waves. Third, owing to their good processability, 2D materials can be integrated into various multifunctional composites for multimode attenuation of electromagnetic energy. In addition to behaving as microwave reflectors and absorbers, 2D materials can act as impedance regulators and provide structural support for good impedance matching and setup of the optimal structure. Numerous studies indicate that 2D materials are among the most promising microwave attenuation materials. In view of the rapid development and enormous advancement of 2D materials in shielding and absorbing electromagnetic wave, there is a strong need to summarize the recent research results in this field for presenting a comprehensive view and providing helpful suggestions for future development.
Vertically aligned γ-AlOOH nanosheets (NSs) have been successfully fabricated on flexible Al foils via a solvothermal route without morphology-directing agents. Three different reaction temperature (25, 80, and 120 ?C) and time (30 min, 45 min, and 24 h) are discussed for the growth period, which efficiently tune the density and size of the γ-AlOOH NSs. Meanwhile, the growth speed of the nanosheets confirms that dominant growth stage is seen in the initial 45 min. Furthermore, the interlayer of the γ-AlOOH NSs displays an average height of 140 nm and superhydrophilicity. By dynamic adsorption, the assynthesized γ-AlOOH NSs exhibit an outstanding NH3 adsorption capacity of up to 146 mg/g and stably excellent regeneration for 5 cycles. The mechanism of NH3 adsorption on the in-plane of the γ-AlOOH NSs is explained by the Lewis acid/base theory. The H-bond interactions among the NH3 molecules and the edge groups (-OH) further improve the capture ability of the nanosheets.
The quantum confinement effect is important in nanoelectronics and optoelectronics applications; however, there is a discrepancy between the theory of quantum confinement, which indicates that band-gap widening occurs only at small sizes, and experimental observations of band-gap widening in large-diameter nanowires (NWs). This paper reports an obvious blue shift of the absorption edge in the UV-visible absorption spectra of SiC NWs with diameters of 50–300 nm. On the basis of quantum confinement theory and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy images of SiC NWs, band-gap widening in SiC NWs with diameters of up to hundreds of nanometers is fully explained; the results could help to explain similar band-gap widening in other NWs with large diameters.
The electronic structures of a MoS2 monolayer are investigated with the all-electron first principle calculations based on the density functional theory (DFT) and the spin-orbital couplings (SOCs). Our results show that the monolayer MoS2 is a direct band gap semiconductor with a band gap of 1.8 eV. The SOCs and d-electrons in Mo play a very significant role in deciding its electronic and optical properties. Moreover, electronic elementary excitations are studied theoretically within the diagrammatic self-consistent field theory. Under random phase approximation, it shows that two branches of plasmon modes can be achieved via the conduction-band transitions due to the SOCs, which are different from the plasmons in a two-dimensional electron gas and graphene owing to the quasi-linear energy dispersion in single-layer MoS2. Moreover, the strong optical absorption up to 105 cm−1 and two optical absorption edges I and II can be observed. This study is relevant to the applications of monolayer MoS2 as an advanced photoelectronic device.
By using the Bloch eigenmode matching approach, we numerically study the evolution of individual quantum Hall edge states with respect to disorder. As demonstrated by the two-parameter renormalization group flow of the Hall and Thouless conductances, quantum Hall edge states with high Chern number n are completely different from that of the n = 1 case. Two categories of individual edge modes are evaluated in a quantum Hall system with high Chern number. Edge states from the lowest Landau level have similar eigenfunctions that are well localized at the system edge and independent of the Fermi energy. On the other hand, at fixed Fermi energy, the edge state from higher Landau levels exhibit larger expansion, which results in less stable quantum Hall states at high Fermi energies. By presenting the local current density distribution, the effect of disorder on eigenmode-resolved edge states is distinctly demonstrated.
We theoretically study the temperature dependence of the excitonic spectra of monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides using the O′Donnell equation,
Using the nonequilibrium Green’s function method combined with the tight-binding Hamiltonian, we theoretically investigate the spin-dependent transmission probability and spin Seebeck coefficient of a crossed armchair-edge graphene nanoribbon (AGNR) superlattice p-n junction under a perpendicular magnetic field with a ferromagnetic insulator, where junction widths W1 of 40 and 41 are considered to exemplify the effect of semiconducting and metallic AGNRs, respectively. A pristine AGNR system is metallic when the transverse layer m = 3j + 2 with a positive integer j and an insulator otherwise. When stubs are present, a semiconducting AGNR junction with width W1 = 40 always shows metallic behavior regardless of the potential drop magnitude, magnetization strength, stub length, and perpendicular magnetic field strength. However, metallic or semiconducting behavior can be obtained from a metallic AGNR junction with W1 = 41 by adjusting these physical parameters. Furthermore, a metal-to-semiconductor transition can be obtained for both superlattice p-n junctions by adjusting the number of periods of the superlattice. In addition, the spin-dependent Seebeck coefficient and spin Seebeck coefficient of the two systems are of the same order of magnitude owing to the appearance of a transmission gap, and the maximum absolute value of the spin Seebeck coefficient reaches 370 μV/K when the optimized parameters are used. The calculated results offer new possibilities for designing electronic or heat-spintronic nanodevices based on the graphene superlattice p-n junction.
We present a detailed investigation of the specific heat of Ca3(Ru1−xMx)2O7 (M= Ti, Fe, Mn) single crystals. Depending on the dopant and doping level, three distinct regions are present: a quasitwo- dimensional metallic state with antiferromagnetic (AFM) order formed by ferromagnetic bilayers (AFM-b), a Mott insulating state with G-type AFM order (G-AFM), and a localized state with a mixed AFM-b and G-AFM phase. Our specific heat data provide deep insights into the Mott transitions induced by Ti and Mn doping. We observed not only an anomalous large mass enhancement, but also an additional term in the specific heat, i.e., C ∝ T2, in the localized region. The C ∝ T2 term is most likely due to long-wavelength excitations with both FM and AFM components. A decrease in the Debye temperature is observed in the G-type AFM region, indicating lattice softening associated with the Mott transition.
The electronic structures and magnetic properties of strained monolayer MnPSe3 are investigated systematically via first-principles calculations. It is found that the magnetic ground state of monolayer MnPSe3 can be significantly affected by biaxial strain engineering, while the semiconducting characteristics are well-preserved. Owing to the sensitivity of the magnetic coupling towards structural deformation, a biaxial tensile strain of approximately 13% can lead to an antiferromagnetic (AFM)- ferromagnetic (FM) transition. The strain-dependent magnetic stability is mainly attributed to the competition of the direct AFM interaction and indirect FM superexchange interaction between the two nearest-neighbor Mn atoms. In addition, we find that FM MnPSe3 is an intrinsic half semiconductor with large spin exchange splitting in the conduction bands, which is crucial for the spin-polarized carrier injection and detection. The sensitive interdependence among the external stimuli, electronic structure, and magnetic coupling makes monolayer MnPSe3 a promising candidate for spintronics.
We study the impurity problem in a Fermi gas of 173Yb atoms near an orbital Feshbach resonance (OFR), where a single moving particle in the 3P0 state interacts with two background Fermi seas of particles in different nuclear states of the ground 1S0 manifold. By employing wave function ansatz to molecule and polaron states, we investigate various properties of the molecule, the attractive polaron, and the repulsive polaron states. In comparison to the case where only one Fermi sea is populated, we find that the presence of an additional Fermi sea acts as an energy shift between the two channels of the OFR. In addition, quantum fluctuations near the Fermi level can also induce sizable effects to various properties of the attractive and repulsive polarons.
In order to investigate the quantum phase transitions and the time-of-flight absorption pictures analytically in a systematic way for ultracold Bose gases in bipartite optical lattices, we present a generalized Green’s function method. Utilizing this method, we study the quantum phase transitions of ultracold Bose gases in two types of bipartite optical lattices, i.e., a hexagonal lattice with normal Bose–Hubbard interaction and a d-dimensional hypercubic optical lattice with extended Bose–Hubbard interaction. Furthermore, the time-of-flight absorption pictures of ultracold Bose gases in these two types of lattices are also calculated analytically. In hexagonal lattice, the time-of-flight interference patterns of ultracold Bose gases obtained by our analytical method are in good qualitative agreement with the experimental results of Soltan-Panahi, et al. [Nat. Phys. 7, 434 (2011)]. In square optical lattice, the emergence of peaks at (±
Based on experimental results, we obtain five types of single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) clusters with different chirality indices and diameters using density functional theory (DFT). We then obtain the corresponding SWNTs by using periodic boundary conditions. Studies of the stability and electronic properties show that the stability of the novel SWNTs is independent of the chirality index and relates only to the tube diameter; larger diameters correspond to more stable SWNTs. The electronic properties all show metallic characteristics independent of the chirality indices and tube diameters, thereby promoting the application of metallic-type SWNTs.
A manifestly covariant, or geometric, field theory of relativistic classical particle-field systems is developed. The connection between the space-time symmetry and energy-momentum conservation laws of the system is established geometrically without splitting the space and time coordinates; i.e., spacetime is treated as one entity without choosing a coordinate system. To achieve this goal, we need to overcome two difficulties. The first difficulty arises from the fact that the particles and the field reside on different manifolds. As a result, the geometric Lagrangian density of the system is a function of the 4-potential of the electromagnetic fields and also a functional of the particles’ world lines. The other difficulty associated with the geometric setting results from the mass-shell constraint. The standard Euler–Lagrange (EL) equation for a particle is generalized into the geometric EL equation when the mass-shell constraint is imposed. For the particle-field system, the geometric EL equation is further generalized into a weak geometric EL equation for particles. With the EL equation for the field and the geometric weak EL equation for particles, the symmetries and conservation laws can be established geometrically. A geometric expression for the particle energy-momentum tensor is derived for the first time, which recovers the non-geometric form in the literature for a chosen coordinate system.
This study investigates the generation of high energy photons and positrons using focused ultrahigh intensity femtosecond laser pulses on a relativistic electron beam with a set of two-dimensional particlein- cell simulations. We consider circularly and linearly polarized, single and spatially separated double laser pulses. We model both 500 MeV and 1 GeV electron beams. Higher positron production is obtained using circularly polarized laser pulses. Using double pulses, the focusing effect of the ponderomotive force confines the electrons to a small volume, generating additional energetic photons and positrons. The positron spectral distributions are effectively modified by these variations. When the electron beam energy is doubled, the number of positrons increased, while the cutoff energy remained nearly constant.
Plasmonic waveguides and conventional dielectric waveguides have favorable characteristics in photonic integrated circuits. Typically, plasmonic waveguides can provide subwavelength mode confinement, as shown by their small mode area, whereas conventional dielectric waveguides guide light with low loss, as shown by their long propagation length. However, the simultaneous achievement of subwavelength mode confinement and low-loss propagation remains limited. In this paper, we propose a novel design of an alldielectric bowtie waveguide, which simultaneously exhibits both subwavelength mode confinement and theoretically lossless propagation. Contrary to traditional dielectric waveguides, where the guidance of light is based on total internal reflection, the principle of the all-dielectric bowtie waveguide is based on the combined use of the conservation of the normal component of the electric displacement and the tangential component of the electric field, such that it can achieve a mode area comparable to its plasmonic counterparts. The mode distribution in the all-dielectric bowtie waveguide can be precisely controlled by manipulating the geometric design. Our work shows that it is possible to achieve extreme light confinement by using dielectric instead of lossy metals.
By introducing a new mechanism based on purely imaginary metamaterials (PIMs), we reveal that bidirectional negative refraction and planar focusing can be obtained using a pair of PIM slabs, overcoming the unidirectional limit in parity-time (PT)-symmetric systems. Compared with PT-symmetric systems, which require two different types of materials, the proposed negative refraction can be realized using two identical media. In addition, asymmetric excitation with bidirectional total transmission is observed in our PIM system. Therefore, a new way to realize negative refraction with properties that are unavailable in PT-symmetric systems is presented.
We propose a simple method to design field concentrators of arbitrary shapes based on Fabry–Pérot resonances. The material parameters are feasible in terms of metallic layered structures and gradient index dielectrics. The functionalities are well confirmed by numerical simulations.
The scattering of an electron by a muon in the presence of a linearly polarized laser field is investigated in the first Born approximation. The theoretical results reveal the following: i) At medium and large scattering angles, many multiphoton processes occur during scattering, and these nonlinear phenomena may predict the resonant state of the electron and the muon formed in the collision process. ii) The photoabsorption (inverse bremsstrahlung) dominates the photoemission (bremsstrahlung), causing the cross section to increase. iii) When the laser polarization deviates from the incident direction, the lasermodified total cross section depends considerably on the azimuthal angle of the scattered electron. The dependence of the cross section on the field strength, polarization direction, and electron-impact energy are studied.
Resource theory is applied to quantify the quantum correlation of a bipartite state and a computable measure is proposed. Since this measure is based on quantum coherence, we present another possible physical meaning for quantum correlation, i.e., the minimum quantum coherence achieved under local unitary transformations. This measure satisfies the basic requirements for quantifying quantum correlation and coincides with concurrence for pure states. Since no optimization is involved in the final definition, this measure is easy to compute irrespective of the Hilbert space dimension of the bipartite state.
We develop a method for creating two- and one-dimensional (2D and 1D) self-trapped modes in binary spin-orbit-coupled Bose–Einstein condensates with the contact repulsive interaction, whose local strength grows sufficiently rapidly from the center to the periphery. In particular, an exact semi-vortex (SV) solution is found for the anti-Gaussian radial modulation profile. The exact modes are included in the numerically produced family of SV solitons. Other families, in the form of mixed modes (MMs), as well as excited states of SVs and MMs, are also produced. Although the excited states are unstable in all previously studied models, they are partially stable in the present one. In the 1D version of the system, exact solutions for the counterpart of SVs, namely, semi-dipole solitons, are also found. Families of semi-dipoles, as well as the 1D version of MMs, are produced numerically.
The quantification of the quantumness of a quantum ensemble has theoretical and practical significance in quantum information theory. We propose herein a class of measures of the quantumness of quantum ensembles using the unitary similarity invariant norms of the commutators of the constituent density operators of an ensemble. Rigorous proof shows that they share desirable properties for a measure of quantumness, such as positivity, unitary invariance, concavity under probabilistic union, convexity under state decomposition, decreasing under coarse graining, and increasing under fine graining. Several specific examples illustrate the applications of these measures of quantumness in studying quantum information.
Innovation, which involves technological transformation and management reorganization, brings about significant changes in modern society. In this paper, to investigate how innovations can be promoted, we propose a game-based model to study the co-evolutionary dynamics of human innovative behaviors. A simulation on scale-free networks is conducted, in which the innovative behavior of each node is determined and updated based on the feedback regarding its innovation, namely the diffusion of the innovation status. Numerical simulations of the model generate a series of patterns, which is consistent with people’s daily experiences and perceptions as regards real-world innovative behaviors. Specifically, various scaling spatiotemporal properties and rich structural impacts on dynamics can be observed. This model provides a novel approach to understand the evolution of innovative behaviors and provides insight for strategy studies of innovation promotion.