Interfacial properties of stanene–metal contacts

Abstract

Recently, two-dimensional buckled honeycomb stanene has been manufactured by molecular beam epitaxy growth. Free-standing stanene is predicted to have a sizable opened band gap of 100 meV at the Dirac point due to spin–orbit coupling (SOC), resulting in many fascinating properties such as quantum spin Hall effect, quantum anomalous Hall effect, and quantum valley Hall effect. In the first time, we systematically study the interfacial properties of stanene–metal interfaces (metals = Ag, Au, Cu, Al, Pd, Pt, Ir, and Ni) by using ab initio electronic structure calculations considering the SOC effects. The honeycomb structure of stanene is preserved on the metal supports, but the buckling height is changed. The buckling of stanene on the Au, Al, Ag, and Cu metal supports is higher than that of free-standing stanene. By contrast, a planar graphene-like structure is stabilized for stanene on the Ir, Pd, Pt, and Ni metal supports. The band structure of stanene is destroyed on all the metal supports, accompanied by a metallization of stanene because the covalent bonds between stanene and the metal supports are formed and the structure of stanene is distorted. Besides, no tunneling barrier exists between stanene and the metal supports. Therefore, stanene and the eight metals form a good vertical Ohmic contact.