Designing Multifunctionality via Assembling Dissimilar Materials: Epitaxial AlN/ScN Superlattices

Zhijun Jiang, Charles Paillard, David Vanderbilt, Hongjun Xiang, and L. Bellaiche
Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 096801 – Published 28 August 2019
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Abstract

First-principles calculations are performed to investigate the effect of epitaxial strain on energetic, structural, electrical, electronic, and optical properties of 1×1 AlN/ScN superlattices. This system is predicted to adopt four different strain regions exhibiting different properties, including optimization of various physical responses such as piezoelectricity, electro-optic and elasto-optic coefficients, and elasticity. Varying the strain between these four different regions also allows the creation of an electrical polarization in a nominally paraelectric material, as a result of a softening of the lowest optical mode, and even the control of its magnitude up to a giant value. Furthermore, it results in an electronic band gap that cannot only change its nature (direct vs indirect), but also cover a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum from the blue, through the violet and near ultraviolet, to the middle ultraviolet. These findings thus point out the potential of assembling two different materials inside the same heterostructure to design multifunctionality and striking phenomena.

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  • Received 19 April 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.096801

© 2019 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Zhijun Jiang1,2,3,4, Charles Paillard3,5, David Vanderbilt6, Hongjun Xiang1,2,*, and L. Bellaiche3,†

  • 1Key Laboratory of Computational Physical Sciences (Ministry of Education), State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics, and Department of Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
  • 2Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing 210093, China
  • 3Physics Department and Institute for Nanoscience and Engineering, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701, USA
  • 4School of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Ludong University, Yantai 264025, China
  • 5Laboratoire SPMS, CentraleSupélec/CNRS UMR 8580, Université Paris-Saclay, 8-10 rue Joliot Curie, 91190 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
  • 6Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, USA

  • *hxiang@fudan.edu.cn
  • laurent@uark.edu

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Issue

Vol. 123, Iss. 9 — 30 August 2019

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