Spontaneous appearance of a low-dimensional magnetic electron system on semiconductor nanostructures

Abstract

We report on the large-scale density-functional calculations that show the emergence of the spin-polarized ground states in nanofacets self-organized on SiC (0001) surfaces. We first reveal that the nanofacet formed by bunching of single bilayer steps induces peculiar electron states localized at but extended along step edges, showing the flat-band characteristics. The electron states are of C-dangling-bond characters mixed with the back-bond character of neighboring edge Si atoms. We find that the resulting flat bands lead to the spin polarization near the step edges by H passivation of the terrace Si atoms. Interestingly, either ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic chains appear along the step edges on the SiC nanofacet and the location of such magnetic chains can be controlled by manipulating the H passivation of atoms near the step edges. These findings open a possibility of the appearance of new magnetic functions on the covalent semiconductor surfaces without magnetic elements.