First-principles calculations of structure optimization, phonon modes, and finite temperature molecular dynamics predict that silicon and germanium can have stable, two-dimensional, low-buckled, honeycomb structures. Similar to graphene, these puckered structures are ambipolar and their charge carriers can behave like a massless Dirac fermion due to their pi and pi(*) bands which are crossed linearly at the Fermi level. In addition to these fundamental properties, bare and hydrogen passivated nanoribbons of Si and Ge show remarkable electronic and magnetic properties, which are size and orientation dependent. These properties offer interesting alternatives for the engineering of diverse nanodevices.

Using first-principles plane-wave calculations, we investigate two-dimensional ͑2D͒ honeycomb structure of group-IV elements and their binary compounds as well as the compounds of group III-V elements. Based on structure optimization and phonon-mode calculations, we determine that 22 different honeycomb materials are stable and correspond to local minima on the Born-Oppenheimer surface. We also find that all the binary compounds containing one of the first row elements, B, C, or N have planar stable structures. On the other hand, in the honeycomb structures of Si, Ge, and other binary compounds the alternating atoms of hexagons are buckled since the stability is maintained by puckering. For those honeycomb materials which were found stable, we calculated optimized structures, cohesive energies, phonon modes, electronic-band structures, effective cation and anion charges, and some elastic constants. The band gaps calculated within density functional theory using local density approximation are corrected by GW 0 method. Si and Ge in honeycomb structure are semimetal and have linear band crossing at the Fermi level which attributes massless Fermion character to charge carriers as in graphene. However, all binary compounds are found to be semiconductor with band gaps depending on the constituent atoms. We present a method to reveal elastic constants of 2D honeycomb structures from the strain energy and calculate the Poisson's ratio as well as in-plane stiffness values. Preliminary results show that the nearly lattice matched heterostructures of these compounds can offer alternatives for nanoscale electronic devices. Similar to those of the three-dimensional group-IV and group III-V compound semiconductors, one deduces interesting correlations among the calculated properties of present honeycomb structures.

This paper presents a systematic study of two and one dimensional honeycomb structure of boron nitride (BN) using first-principles plane wave method. Two-dimensional (2D) graphene like BN is a wide band gap semiconductor with ionic bonding. Phonon dispersion curves demonstrate the stability of 2D BN flakes. Quasi 1D armchair BN nanoribbon are nonmagnetic semiconductors with edge states. Upon passivation of B and N with hydrogen atoms these edge states disappear and band gap increases. Bare zigzag BN nanoribbons are metallic, but become a ferromagnetic semiconductor when their both edges are passivated with hydrogen. However, their magnetic ground state, electronic band structure and band gap are found to be strongly dependent on whether B-or Nedge of the ribbon is saturated with hydrogen. Vacancy defects in armchair and zigzag nanoribbons affects also magnetic state and electronic structure. In order to reveal dimensionality effects these properties are contrasted with those of various 3D BN crystals and 1D BN atomic chain.

This paper presents a comparative study of the lattice dynamics of three-dimensional layered MoS2 and two-dimensional single layer MoS2 based on the density functional theory. A comprehensive analysis of energetics and optimized structure parameters is performed using different methods. It is found that the van der Waals attraction between layers of three-dimensional (3D) layered MoS2 is weak but is essential to hold the layers together with the equilibrium interlayer spacing. Cohesive energy, phonon dispersion curves, and corresponding density of states and related properties, such as Born-effective charges, dielectric constants, Raman and infrared active modes are calculated for 3D layered as well as 2D single layer MoS2 using their optimized structures. These calculated values are compared with the experimental data to reveal interesting dimensionality effects. The absence of a weak interlayer interaction in 2D single layer MoS2 results in the softening of some of Raman active modes.

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Recent synthesis of fluorinated graphene introduced interesting stable derivatives of graphene. In particular, fluorographene (CF), namely, fully fluorinated chair conformation, is found to display crucial features, such as high mechanical strength, charged surfaces, local magnetic moments due to vacancy defects, and a wide band gap rapidly reducing with uniform strain. These properties, as well as structural parameters and electronic densities of states, are found to scale with fluorine coverage. However, most of the experimental data reported to date neither for CF nor for other C(n)F structures complies with the results obtained from first-principles calculations. In this study, we attempt to clarify the sources of disagreements