Characteristics of Li diffusion on silicene and zigzag nanoribbon**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11074212 and 11204123) and the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu province, China (Grant No. BK20130945).

Abstract

We perform a density functional study on the adsorption and diffusion of Li atoms on silicene sheet and zigzag nanoribbons. Our results show that the diffusion energy barrier of Li adatoms on silicene sheet is 0.25 eV, which is much lower than on graphene and Si bulk. The diffusion barriers along the axis of zigzag silicene nanoribbon range from 0.1 to 0.25 eV due to an edge effect, while the diffusion energy barrier is about 0.5 eV for a Li adatom to enter into a silicene nanoribbon. Our calculations indicate that using silicene nanoribbons as anodes is favorable for a Li-ion battery.