Strain-engineered surface transport in Si(001): complete isolation of the surface state via tensile strain.
By combining density functional theory, nonequilibrium Green's function formulism and effective-Hamiltonian approaches, we demonstrate strain-engineered surface transport in Si(001), with the complete isolation of the Si surface states from the bulk bands. Our results show that sufficient tensile strain can effectively remove the overlap between the surface valence state and the bulk valence band, because of the drastically different deformation potentials. Isolation of the surface valence state is possible with a tensile strain of ∼1.5%, a value that is accessible experimentally. Quantum transport simulations of a chemical sensing device based on strained Si(001) surface confirm the dominating surface conductance, giving rise to an enhanced molecular sensitivity. Our results show promise for using strain engineering to further our ability to manipulate surface states for quantum information processing and surface state-based devices.
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA.
Miao
M
Zhou
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA.
Zheng
Z
Liu
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA.
Zhengfei
Z
Wang
Department of Physics, National University of Singapore, 117542 Singapore.
Zhaoqiang
Z
Bai
Department of Physics, National University of Singapore, 117542 Singapore.
Yuanping
Y
Feng
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA.
Max G
MG
Lagally
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA.
Feng
F
Liu