Olivia Pulci

Massive Dirac quasiparticles in the optical absorbance of graphene, silicene, germanene, and tinene.

We present first-principles studies of the optical absorbance of the group IV honeycomb crystals graphene, silicene, germanene, and tinene. We account for many-body effects on the optical properties by using the non-local hybrid functional HSE06. The optical absorption peaks are blueshifted due to quasiparticle corrections, while the influence on the low-frequency absorbance remains unchanged and reduces to a universal value related to the Sommerfeld fine structure constant. At the Dirac points spin-orbit interaction opens fundamental band gaps; parabolic bands with a very small effective mass emerge. Consequently, the low-frequency absorbance is modified with a spin-orbit-induced transparency region and an increase of the absorbance at the fundamental absorption edge.

Infrared absorbance of silicene and germanene

Calculating the complex dielectric function for optical interband transitions we show that the two-dimensional crystals silicene and germanene possess the same low-frequency absorbance as graphene. It is determined by the Sommerfeld finestructure constant. Deviations occur for higher frequencies when the first interband transitions outside K or K′ contribute. The low-frequency results are a consequence of the honeycomb geometry but do not depend on the group-IV atom, the sheet buckling, and the orbital hybridization. The two-dimensional crystals may be useful as absorption normals in silicon technology.

Engineering silicon nanocrystals: Theoretical study of the effect of codoping with boron and phosphorus

We show that the optical and electronic properties of nanocrystalline silicon can be efficiently tuned using impurity doping. In particular, we give evidence, by means of ab initio calculations, that by properly controlling the doping with either one or two atomic species, a significant modification of both the absorption and the emission of light can be achieved. We have considered impurities, either boron or phosphorous (doping) or both (codoping), located at different substitutional sites of silicon nanocrystals with size ranging from

Silicon nanocrystallites in a SiO2 matrix: Role of disorder and size

1.1\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\text{to}\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}1.8\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{nm}

Excitons in silicon nanocrystallites: The nature of luminescence

in diameter. We have found that the codoped nanocrystals have the lowest impurity formation energies when the two impurities occupy nearest neighbor sites near the surface. In addition, such systems present band-edge states localized on the impurities, giving rise to a redshift of the absorption thresholds with respect to that of undoped nanocrystals. Our detailed theoretical analysis shows that the creation of an electron-hole pair due to light absorption determines a geometry distortion that, in turn, results in a Stokes shift between adsorption and emission spectra. In order to give a deeper insight into this effect, in one case we have calculated the absorption and emission spectra beyond the single-particle approach, showing the important role played by many-body effects. The entire set of results we have collected in this work give a strong indication that with the doping it is possible to tune the optical properties of silicon nanocrystals.

Origin of Dirac-cone-like features in silicon structures on Ag(111) and Ag(110)

We compare, through first-principles pseudopotential calculations, the structural, electronic, and optical properties of different size silicon nanoclusters embedded in a

Silicon and Germanium Nanostructures for Photovoltaic Applications: Ab-Initio Results

{\text{SiO}}_{2}

Side-dependent electron escape from graphene- and graphane-like SiC layers

crystalline or amorphous matrix with that of freestanding, hydrogenated, and hydroxided silicon nanoclusters of corresponding size and shape. We find that the largest effect on the optoelectronic behavior is due to the amorphization of the embedded nanocluster. In that, the amorphization reduces the fundamental gap while increasing the absorption strength in the visible range. Increasing the nanocluster size does not change substantially this picture but only leads to the reduction in the absorption threshold, following the quantum confinement rule. Finally, through the calculation of the optical absorption spectra both in an independent-particle and a many-body approach, we show that the effect of local fields is crucial for describing properly the optical behavior of the crystalline case while it is of minor importance for amorphous systems.

Excited state properties of liquid water.

The absorption and emission spectra of silicon nanocrystals up to 1 nm diameter have been calculated within a first-principles framework. Our calculations include geometry optimization and the many-body effects induced by the creation of an electron-hole pair. Starting from hydrogenated silicon clusters of different sizes, different Si/O bondings at the cluster surface have been considered. We found that the presence of a Si-O-Si bridge bond causes significant excitonic luminescence features in the visible range that are in fair agreement with experiment.

Determination of the Electronic Energy Levels of Colloidal Nanocrystals using Field-Effect Transistors and Ab-Initio Calculations

The recently reported synthesis of silicene in the form of nanoribbons on Ag(110) or 2D epitaxial sheets on Ag(111) aroused considerable interest in the scientific community. Both overlayers were reported to display signatures of Dirac fermions with linearly dispersing electronic bands. In this work, we study the electronic structure of these adsorbate systems within density functional theory. We show that the conical features apparent in angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy measurements are not due to silicon but to the silver substrate, as an effect of band folding induced by the Si overlayer periodicity.