Orientation and strain modulated electronic structures in puckered arsenene nanoribbons

Abstract

Orthorhombic arsenene was recently predicted as an indirect bandgap semiconductor. Here, we demonstrate that nanostructuring arsenene into nanoribbons successfully transform the bandgap to be direct. It is found that direct bandgaps hold for narrow armchair but wide zigzag nanoribbons, which is dominated by the competition between the in-plane and out-of-plane bondings. Moreover, straining the nanoribbons also induces a direct bandgap and simultaneously modulates effectively the transport property. The gap energy is largely enhanced by applying tensile strains to the armchair structures. In the zigzag ones, a tensile strain makes the effective mass of holes much higher while a compressive strain cause it much lower than that of electrons. Our results are crucial to understand and engineer the electronic properties of two dimensional materials beyond the planar ones like graphene.