Ab-initio study of electronic properties of Si(C) honeycomb structures

Abstract

In this work, the electronic structures of pure and concentrated graphene and Silicene have been studied by performing first-principles pseudo potential plane-wave calculations. The concentrated structures have been obtained by the substitution of Si(C) atoms in the graphene (silicene), respectively. Firstly, the calculations are performed for pure graphene and continued for its concentrations. The concentrated graphene is obtained by substitution of Si atoms (with: 12.5, 25, 37.5 and 50 mol percentage) at different positions in the unit cell of graphene. Similar to graphene, the same calculations are performed for pure silicene as well as for silicene after substitution of C atoms. We have modeled the lattice constant, the band structure and its directivity, while the position and mole fractions of the substituted atoms are changed in the unit cell of the studied compound. Our results showed that: the total energy, the density of States (DOS), the charge density (CD), the opening of the band gap and its directivity are strongly dependent both on the position and mole fraction of the substituted Si(C) atoms. As an interesting result, we found an indirect open band gap, as large as 2.53 eV for silicon doped graphene. Also, it was found that both the elemental concentration and unit cell geometry could offer remarkable advantages for band splitting and band gap opening in these graphene like structures, which have known as ideal structures with many promising potential applications in the electronic, optoelectronic and spintronic.