Electric field effects on the excited properties of Si2N2 molecule with special configuration：a density-functional study

Abstract

In order to understand in depth the electroluminescence mechanism, the influences of the external electric field on the geometric and electronic structure in ground state, the molecular vibrational spectra of Si2N2 molecule with Cs special symmetry are studied by density functional theory with B3LYP exchange-correlation prescription at the aug-cc-pVTZ basis set level. Following each optimization, the vibrational frequencies are calculated and all optimized structures are stable. The results show that the molecular vibrational Stark effect, i.e., red-shift for the low-frequency modes and blue-shift for the high-frequency modes are observed with the increase of the applied field strength. The energies of the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO), the energy gap between HOMO and LUMO of Si2N2 molecule diminish with the increase of external field. A time-dependent density functional theory is used to investigate the excited properties of Si2N2 (Cs) molecule. The calculated absorption spectra of Si2N2 molecule with Cs symmetry are in agreement with the experiment values. The analysis reveals that the absorption spectrum wavelength increases in the visible region with a concomitant increase in the electronic transition oscillator strengths in the course of the increase of the external electric field strength. The results reveal that the excited properties of Si2N2 molecule can be easily tuned by the external electric field, which indicates that the silicon nitride is an interesting optoelectronic functional material. These investigations on the various properties of Si2N2 molecule with Cs symmetry under an external electric field are useful to understand the electroluminescence mechanism for silicon nitride used in molecular electronics.