Alessandro Pecchia

Atomistic theory of transport in organic and inorganic nanostructures

As the size of modern electronic and optoelectronic devices is scaling down at a steady pace, atomistic simulations become necessary for an accurate modelling of their structural, electronic, optical and transport properties. Such microscopic approaches are important in order to account correctly for quantum-mechanical phenomena affecting both electronic and transport properties of nanodevices. Effective bulk parameters cannot be used for the description of the electronic states since interfacial properties play a crucial role and semiclassical methods for transport calculations are not suitable at the typical scales where the device behaviour is characterized by coherent tunnelling.Quantum-mechanical computations with atomic resolution can be achieved using localized basis sets for the description of the system Hamiltonian. Such methods have been extensively used to predict optical and electronic properties of molecules and mesoscopic systems.The most important approaches formulated in terms of localized basis sets, from empirical tight-binding (TB) to first principles methods, are here reviewed. Being a full band approach, even the simplest TB overcomes the limitations of envelope function approximations, such as the well-known k ? p, and allows to retain atomic details and realistic band structures. First principles calculations, on the other hand, can give a very accurate description of the electronic and structural properties.Transport in nanoscale devices cannot neglect quantum effects such as coherent tunnelling. In this context, localized basis sets are well-suited for the formal treatment of quantum transport since they provide a simple mathematical framework to treat open-boundary conditions, typically encountered when the system eigenstates carry a steady-state current.We review the principal methods used to formulate quantum transport based on local orbital sets via transfer matrix and Greens function (GF) techniques. We start from a general introduction to the scattering theory which leads to the Landauer formula, and then report on the most recent progresses of the field including the application of the self-consistent non-equilibrium GF formalism.

Efficiency Drop in Green InGaN/GaN Light Emitting Diodes: The Role of Random Alloy Fluctuations

White light emitting diodes based on III-nitride InGaN/GaN quantum wells currently offer the highest overall efficiency for solid state lighting applications. Although current phosphor-converted white LEDs have high electricity-to-light conversion efficiencies, it has been recently pointed out that the full potential of solid state lighting could be exploited only by color mixing approaches without employing phosphor-based wavelength conversion. Such an approach requires direct emitting LEDs of different colors, in particular in the green/yellow range ov the visible spectrum. This range, however, suffers from a systematic drop in efficiency, known as the “green gap”, whose physical origin has not been understood completely so far. In this work we show by atomistic simulations that a consistent part of the “green gap” in c-plane InGaN/GaN based light emitting diodes may be attributed to a decrease in the radiative recombination coefficient with increasing Indium content due to random fluctuations of the Indium concentration naturally present in any InGaN alloy.

Non-equilibrium Green's functions in density functional tight binding: method and applications

We present a detailed description of the implementation of the non-equilibrium Greens function (NEGF) technique on the density-functional-based tight-binding (gDFTB) simulation tool. This approach can be used to compute electronic transport in organic and inorganic molecular-scale devices. The DFTB tight-binding formulation gives an efficient computational tool that is able to handle a large number of atoms. NEGFs are used to compute the electronic density self-consistently with the open-boundary conditions naturally encountered in quantum transport problems and the boundary conditions imposed by the potentials at the contacts. The efficient block-iterative algorithm used to compute the Greens functions is illustrated. The Hartree potential of the density-functional Hamiltonian is obtained by solving the three-dimensional Poisson equation. A scheme to treat geometrically complex boundary conditions is discussed, including the possibility of including multiterminal calculations.

The Multiscale Paradigm in Electronic Device Simulation

In this paper, we present a framework for the simulation of electronic devices based on a multiscale and multiphysics approach. A formal description is provided that includes both multiscale and multiphysics problems and which can be linked to already established multiscale methods. We present a set of simulations of an AlGaN/GaN nanocolumn based on a multiscale coupling between atomistic descriptions and continuous media models, illustrating the application of such a multiscale approach to electronic device simulation.

Role of Ferroelectric Nanodomains in the Transport Properties of Perovskite Solar Cells

Metropolis Monte Carlo simulations are used to construct minimal energy configurations by electrostatic coupling of rotating dipoles associated with each unit cell of a perovskite CH3NH3PbI3 crystal. Short-range antiferroelectric order is found, whereas at scales of 8-10 nm, we observe the formation of nanodomains, strongly influencing the electrostatics of the device. The models are coupled to drift-diffusion simulations to study the actual role of nanodomains in the I-V characteristics, especially focusing on charge separation and recombination losses. We demonstrate that holes and electrons separate into different nanodomains following different current pathways. From our analysis we can conclude that even antiferroelectric ordering can ultimately lead to an increase of photoconversion efficiencies thanks to a decrease of trap-assisted recombination losses and the formation of good current percolation patterns along domain edges.

Strong overtones modes in inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy with cross-conjugated molecules: a prediction from theory.

Cross-conjugated molecules are known to exhibit destructive quantum interference, a property that has recently received considerable attention in single-molecule electronics. Destructive quantum interference can be understood as an antiresonance in the elastic transmission near the Fermi energy and leading to suppressed levels of elastic current. In most theoretical studies, only the elastic contributions to the current are taken into account. In this paper, we study the inelastic contributions to the current in cross-conjugated molecules and find that while the inelastic contribution to the current is larger than for molecules without interference, the overall behavior of the molecule is still dominated by the quantum interference feature. Second, an ongoing challenge for single molecule electronics is understanding and controlling the local geometry at the molecule-surface interface. With this in mind, we investigate a spectroscopic method capable of providing insight into these junctions for cross-conjugated molecules: inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy (IETS). IETS has the advantage that the molecule interface is probed directly by the tunneling current. Previously, it has been thought that overtones are not observable in IETS. Here, overtones are predicted to be strong and, in some cases, the dominant spectroscopic features. We study the origin of the overtones and find that the interference features in these molecules are the key ingredient. The interference feature is a property of the transmission channels of the π system only, and consequently, in the vicinity of the interference feature, the transmission channels of the σ system and the π system become equally transmissive. This allows for scattering between the different transmission channels, which serves as a pathway to bypass the interference feature. A simple model calculation is able to reproduce the results obtained from atomistic calculations, and we use this to interpret these findings.

Electron–phonon scattering in molecular electronics: from inelastic electron tunnelling spectroscopy to heating effects

In this paper, we investigate dissipation in molecular electronic devices. Dissipation is a crucial quantity which determines the stability and heating of the junction. Moreover, several experimental techniques which use inelastically scattered electrons as probes to investigate the geometry in the junction are becoming fundamental in the field. In order to describe such physical effects, a non-equilibrium Greens function (NEGF) method was implemented to include scattering events between electrons and molecular vibrations in current simulations. It is well known that the final heating of the molecule depends also on the ability of the molecule to relax vibrational quanta into the contact reservoirs. A semi-classical rate equation has been implemented and integrated within the NEGF formalism to include this relaxation. The model is based on two quantities: (i) the rate of emission of phonons in the junction by electron–phonon scattering and (ii) a microscopic approach for the computation of the phonon decay rate, accounting for the dynamical coupling between the vibrational modes localized on the molecule and the contact phonons. The method is applied to investigate inelastic electron tunnelling spectroscopy (IETS) signals in CO molecules on Cu(110) substrates as well as dissipation in C60 molecules on Cu(110) and Si(100) surfaces. It is found that the mechanisms of energy relaxation are highly mode-specific and depend crucially on the lead electronic structure and junction geometry.

Coupling of molecular vibrons with contact phonon reservoirs

In this paper we describe a computational method for coupling localized molecular vibrations with contact phonons using a Greens function formalism. The phonon Greens function is constructed from the dynamical matrix of the contact–molecule–contact coupled system. Within this formalism we identify the imaginary part of the self-energy as the vibron lifetime for decay into contact phonons. This first-principles calculation allows us to compute the microscopic energy dissipation and the heat transport from the molecule to the contacts. This is a fundamental step for the evaluation of the power dissipated in molecular devices and for studying the thermal stability of molecular devices.

Tight-Binding DFT for Molecular Electronics (gDFTB)

We present a detailed description of the implementation of the non-equilibrium Greens function technique on the density-functional-based tight-binding simulation tool (gDFTB). This approach can be used to compute electronic transport in organic and inorganic molecular-scale devices. The tight-binding formulation gives an efficient computational tool able to handle a large number of atoms. The non-equilibrium Greens functions are used to compute the electronic density self-consistently with the open-boundary conditions naturally encountered in transport problems and the boundary conditions imposed by the potentials at the contacts. The Hartree potential of the density-functional Hamiltonian is obtained by solving the three-dimensional Poissons equation involving the non-equilibrium charge density. This method can treat, within a unified framework, coherent and incoherent transport mechanisms.

IETS and quantum interference: Propensity rules in the presence of an interference feature

Destructive quantum interference in single molecule electronics is an intriguing phenomenon; however, distinguishing quantum interference effects from generically low transmission is not trivial. In this paper, we discuss how quantum interference effects in the transmission lead to either low current or a particular line shape in current-voltage curves, depending on the position of the interference feature. Second, we consider how inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy can be used to probe the presence of an interference feature by identifying vibrational modes that are selectively suppressed when quantum interference effects dominate. That is, we expand the understanding of propensity rules in inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy to molecules with destructive quantum interference.