The correlation between strain and electronic structure in monolayer thick films

Abstract

We explote and empirical relationship between strain (and lattice constant) and the valence electronic structure for mercury, bromine and iron overlayers. These overlayers have a range of lattice constants. For the Hg overlayers, all share a common cubic crystallography. We generally observe that the smaller the overlayer lattice constant, the greater the energy separation betweend-bands (Hg and Fe) orp-bands (Br). These results have important implications in relating electronic structure to fundamental properties such as magnetism. In addition, the film thickness limits for pseudomorphic growth calculated from the bulk properties are consistent with the experimental studies of Hg pseudomorphic growth on Ag (100) at 90 K.