Electronic properties of a new structured Sin/O superlattice

Abstract

Silicon is a material which dominants the semiconductor industry and has a well-established processing technology based on it. However, silicon has an indirect-bandgap and is not efficient in light emitting. This limits its applications in optoelectronics. In this paper, we proposed a new structural model for the silicon-based superlattice, i.e., the Sin/O one. The model consists of alternating films of n-layers of Si and a monolayer of oxygen along z-direction, together with a surface cell of Si(001) (2×1) reconstruction in the x-y plane. The importance of employing such a Si(001) (2×1) reconstruction is that all the electrons at interface can be strongly bonded. Our results showed interesting electronic properties, e.g., the band folding and large band gap of bulk Si, when the thickness of the silicon layers was increased (but still thin). Our structure might also offer other interesting properties.