Progressive changes in atomic structure and gap states on Si(0 0 1) by Bi adsorption

Abstract

From ab initio studies employing the pseudopotential method and the density functional scheme, we report on progressive changes in geometry, electronic states, and atomic orbitals on Si(0 0 1) by adsorption of different amounts of Bi coverage. For the 1/4 ML coverage, uncovered Si dimers retain the characteristic asymmetric (tilted) geometry of the clean Si(0 0 1) surface and the Si dimers underneath the Bi dimer have become symmetric (untilted) and elongated. For this geometry, occupied as well as unoccupied surface states are found to lie in the silicon band gap, both sets originating mainly from the uncovered and tilted silicon dimers. For the 1/2 ML coverage, there are still both occupied and unoccupied surface states in the band gap. The highest occupied state originates from an elaborate mixture of the p z orbital at the Si and Bi dimer atoms, and the lowest unoccupied state has a pp σ* antibonding character derived from the Bi dimer atoms. For 1 ML coverage, there are no surface states in the fundamental bulk band gap. The highest occupied and the lowest unoccupied states, lying close to band edges, show a linear combination of the p z orbitals and pp σ* antibonding orbital characters, respectively, derived from the Bi dimer atoms.