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The pursuit to operate photocathodes at high accelerating gradients to increase brightness of electron beams is gaining interests within the accelerator community. Cesium telluride (Cs2Te) is a widely used photocathode material and it is presumed to offer resilience to higher gradients because of its wider band gap compared to other semiconductors. Despite its advantages, crucial material properties of Cs2Te remain largely unknown both in theory and experiments. In this study, we employ first-principles calculations to provide detailed structural, elastic, electronic and transport properties of Cs2Te. It is found that Cs2Te has an intrinsic mobility of 20 cm2/Vs for electrons and 2.0 cm2/Vs for holes at room temperature. The low mobility is primarily limited by the strong polar optical phonon scattering. Cs2Te also exhibits ultralow lattice thermal conductivity of 0.2 W/(m*K) at room temperature. Based on the energy gain/loss balance under external field and electron-phonon scattering, we predict that Cs2Te has a dielectric breakdown field in the range from ~60 MV/m to ~132 MV/m at room temperature dependent on the doping level of Cs2Te. Our results are crucial to advance the understanding of applicability of Cs2Te photocathodes for high-gradient operation.

Two dimensional (2D) materials with a finite band gap and high carrier mobility are sought after materials from both fundamental and technological perspectives. In this paper, we present the results based on the particle swarm optimization method and density functional theory which predict three geometrically different phases of carbon phosphide (CP) monolayer consisted of sp2 hybridized C atoms and sp3 hybridized P atoms in hexagonal networks. Two of the phases, referred to as {\alpha}-CP and \b{eta}-CP with puckered and buckled surfaces, respectively are semiconducting with highly anisotropic electronic and mechanical properties. More remarkably, they have lightest electrons and holes among the known 2D semiconductors, yielding superior carrier mobility. The {\gamma}-CP has a distorted hexagonal network and exhibits a semi-metallic behavior with Dirac cones. These theoretical findings suggest the binary CP monolayer to be yet unexplored 2D materials holding great promises for applications in high-performance electronics and optoelectronics.

Phosphorene is a promising two dimensional (2D) material with a direct band gap, high carrier mobility, and anisotropic electronic properties. Phosphorene-based electronic devices, however, are found to degrade upon exposure to air. In this paper, we provide an atomic level understanding of stability of phosphorene in terms of its interaction with O2 and H2O. The results based on density functional theory together with first principles molecular dynamics calculations show that O2 could spontaneously dissociate on phosphorene at room temperature. H2O will not strongly interact with pristine phosphorene, however, an exothermic reaction could occur if phosphorene is first oxidized. The pathway of oxidation first followed by exothermic reaction with water is the most likely route for the chemical degradation of the phosphorene-based devices in air.

Phosphorene has been rediscovered recently, establishing itself as one of the most promising two dimensional group-V elemental monolayers with direct band gap, high carrier mobility, and anisotropic electronic properties. In this letter, the buckling and its effect on the electronic properties in phosphorene are investigated by using molecular dynamics simulations and complemented by density functional theory calculations. We find that phosphorene shows superior out-of-plane structural flexibility along the armchair direction, which allows the formation of buckling with large curvatures, while the buckling along the zigzag direction will break its structure integrity at large curvatures. The semiconducting and direct band gap nature are retained with buckling along the armchair direction; the band gap decreases and transforms to an indirect band gap with buckling along the zigzag direction. The structural flexibility and electronic robustness along the armchair direction facilitate the fabrication of devices with complex shapes, such as folded phosphorene and phosphorene nano-scrolls, thereby offering new possibilities for the application of phosphorene in flexible electronics and optoelectronics.

Phosphorene is emerging as a promising 2D semiconducting material with a direct band gap and high carrier mobility. In this paper, we examine the role of the extrinsic point defects including surface adatoms in modifying the electronic properties of phosphorene using density functional theory. The surface adatoms considered are B, C, N, O and F with a [He] core electronic configuration. Our calculations show that B and C, with electronegativity close to P, prefer to break the sp3 bonds of phosphorene, and reside at the interstitial sites in the 2D lattice by forming sp2 bonds with the native atoms. On the other hand, N, O and F, which are more electronegative than P, prefer the surface sites by attracting the lone pairs of phosphorene. B, N and F adsorption will also introduce local magnetic moment to the lattice. Moreover, B, C, N and F adatoms will modify the band gap of phosphorene yielding metallic transverse tunneling characters. Oxygen does not modify the band gap of phosphorene, and a diode like tunneling behavior is observed. Our results therefore offer a possible route to tailor the electronic and magnetic properties of phosphorene by the adatom functionalization, and provide the physical insights of the environmental sensitivity of phosphorene, which will be helpful to experimentalists in evaluating the performance and aging effects of phosphorene-based electronic devices.

Group-V elemental monolayers including phosphorene are emerging as promising 2D materials with semiconducting electronic properties. Here, we present the results of first principles calculations on stability, mechanical and electronic properties of 2D antimony (Sb), antimonene. Our calculations show that free-standing {\alpha} and \b{eta} allotropes of antimonene are stable and semiconducting. The {\alpha}-Sb has a puckered structure with two atomic sub-layers and \b{eta}-Sb has a buckled hexagonal lattice. The calculated Raman spectra and STM images have distinct features thus facilitating characterization of both allotropes. The \b{eta}-Sb has nearly isotropic mechanical properties while {\alpha}-Sb shows strongly anisotropic characteristics. An indirect-direct band gap transition is expected with moderate tensile strains applied to the monolayers, which opens up the possibility of their applications in optoelectronics.

Free-standing and well-ordered two-dimensional (2D) silica monolayers with tetrahedral (T-silica) and octahedral (O-silica) building blocks are found to be stable by first principles calculations; T-silica is formed by corner-sharing SiO4 tetrahedrons in a rectangular network and O-silica consists of edge-sharing SiO6 octahedrons. Moreover, the insulating O-silica is the strongest silica monolayer, and can therefore act as a supporting substrate for nanostructures in sensing and catalytic applications. Nanoribbons of T-silica are metallic while those of O-silica have band gaps regardless of the chirality. We find the interaction of O-silica with graphene to be weak suggesting the possibility of its use as a monolayer dielectric material for graphene-based devices. Considering that the six-fold coordinated silica exists at high pressure in the bulk phase, the prediction of a small energy difference of O-silica with the synthesized silica bilayer together with the thermal stability at 1000 K suggest that synthesis of O-silica can be achieved in experiments.

Phosphorene, the monolayer form of the (black) phosphorus, was recently exfoliated from its bulk counterpart. Phosphorene oxide, by analogy to graphene oxide, is expected to have novel chemical and electronic properties, and may provide an alternative route to synthesis of phosphorene. In this letter, we investigate physical and chemical properties of the phosphorene oxide including its formation by the oxygen adsorption on the bare phosphorene. Analysis of the phonon dispersion curves finds stoichiometric and non-stoichiometric oxide configurations to be stable at ambient conditions, thus suggesting that the oxygen absorption may not degrade the phosphorene. The nature of the band gap of the oxides depends on the degree of the functionalization of phosphorene; indirect gap is predicted for the non-stoichiometric configurations whereas a direct gap is predicted for the stoichiometric oxide. Application of the mechanical strain and external electric field leads to tunability of the band gap of the phosphorene oxide. In contrast to the case of the bare phosphorene, dependence of the diode-like asymmetric current-voltage response on the degree of stoichiometry is predicted for the phosphorene oxide.