Search

The two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) that forms on a semiconductor surface can be used to explore a variety of phenomena in quantum physics and plays an important role in nanoscale electronics, such as transistors. Controlling its formation is, thus, relevant. Using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) and accumulating the signal over many nanocrystals, we find that on clean InAs nanosheets with non-polar surfaces and wurtzite (WZ) crystal structures, a 2DEG can be observed at the Γ-point. We suggest that the step morphology on the WZ InAs specimens facilitates the appearance of the electron gas, since previous studies on InAs nanowire surfaces with the same crystal facet and a similar defect density did not exhibit a 2DEG. Subsequently, bismuth deposition leads to the disappearance of the 2DEG as well as a shift of the valence band. This is in contrast to previous observations on InAs surfaces, in which metal deposition would lead to the formation of a 2DEG. The control of the 2DEG with the addition of Bi atoms is relevant for applications of InAs nanosheets in quantum technologies. This study also illustrates that ARPES accumulated over several 2D materials oriented randomly around their normal axis can provide valuable information on their band structure with a fast turnover and low irradiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stretching or compression can induce significant energetic, geometric, and spectroscopic changes in materials. To fully exploit these effects in the design of mechano- or piezo-chromic materials, self-healing polymers, and other mechanoresponsive devices, a detailed knowledge about the distribution of mechanical strain in the material is essential. Within the past decade, Judgement of Energy DIstribution (JEDI) analysis has emerged as a useful tool for this purpose. Based on the harmonic approximation, the strain energy in each bond length, bond angle, and dihedral angle of the deformed system is calculated using quantum chemical methods. This allows the identification of the force-bearing scaffold of the system, leading to an understanding of mechanochemical processes at the most fundamental level. Here, we present a publicly available code that generalizes the JEDI analysis, which has previously only been available for isolated molecules. Now, the code has been extended to two- and three-dimensional periodic systems, supramolecular clusters, and substructures of chemical systems under various types of deformation. Due to the implementation of JEDI into the Atomic Simulation Environment, the JEDI analysis can be interfaced with a plethora of program packages that allow the calculation of electronic energies for molecular systems and systems with periodic boundary conditions. The automated generation of a color-coded three-dimensional structure via the Visual Molecular Dynamics program allows insightful visual analyses of the force-bearing scaffold of the strained system., (© 2024 Author(s). Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing.)