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Using a variational approach, the binding energies $E_b$ of the lowest bound excitons in Xenes under varying electric field are investigated. The internal exciton motion is described both by Dirac electron dispersion and in effective-mass approximation, while the screened electron-hole attraction is modeled by a Rytova-Keldysh potential with a 2D electronic polarizability $\alpha_{2{\rm D}}$. The most important parameters as spin-orbit-induced gap $E_g$, Fermi velocity $v_F$ and $\alpha_{2{\rm D}}$ are taken from ab initio density functional theory calculations. In addition, $\alpha_{2{\rm D}}$ is approximated in two different ways. The relation of $E_b$ and $E_g$ is ruled by the screening. The existence of an excitonic insulator phase with $E_b>E_g$ sensitively depends on the chosen $\alpha_{2{\rm D}}$. The values of $E_g$ and $\alpha_{2{\rm D}}$ are strongly modified by a vertical external electric bias $U$, which defines a transition from the topological into a trivial insulator at $U=E_g/2$, with the exception of plumbene. Within the Dirac approximation, but also within the effective mass description of the kinetic energy, the treatment of screening dominates the appearance or non-appearance of an excitonic insulator phase. Gating does not change the results: the prediction done at zero electric field is confirmed when a vertical electric field is applied. Finally, Many-Body perturbation theory approaches based on the Green's function method, applied to stanene, confirm the absence of an excitonic insulator phase, thus validating our results obtained by ab initio modeling of $\alpha_{2{\rm D}}$.

The scattering theory for two crossing metallic single-walled carbon nanotubes of finite length exposed to an electromagnetic field has been developed based on a synthesis of the quantum transport formalism and classical electrodynamics. The model of the point contact has been developed to be incorporated into the Hallén and Pocklington equations for crossing carbon nanotubes. The influence of the contact conductance and position as well as the angle between the tube axes on the tube polarizability has been analyzed in the range of 1 GHz to 10 THz. The physical mechanisms responsible for the electromagnetic interaction between crossing tubes with zero and nonzero intertube contact conductance are shown and discussed. The influence of the coupling between the tubes on the localized plasmon resonance in them has been demonstrated.

We present the electromagnetic scattering theory for a finite-length nanowire with an embedded mesoscopic object. The theory is based on a synthesis of the integral equation technique of classical electrodynamics and the quantum transport formalism. We formulate Hallén-type integral equations, where the canonical integral operators from wire antenna theory are combined with special terms responsible for the mesoscopic structure. The theory is applied to calculate the polarizability of a finite-length single-walled carbon nanotube (CNT) with a short low-conductive section (LCS) in the microwave and subterahertz ranges. The LCS is modeled as a multichannel two-electrode mesoscopic system. The effective resistive sheet impedance boundary conditions for the scattered field are applied on the CNT surface. It is shown that the imaginary part of the polarizability spectrum has three peaks. Two of them are in the terahertz range, while the third is in the gigahertz range. The polarizability spectrum of the CNT with many LCSs has only one gigahertz peak, which shifts to low frequencies as the number of LCSs increases. The physical nature of these peaks is explained, and potential applications of nanoantennas are proposed.

We compare, through first-principles pseudopotential calculations, the structural, electronic and optical properties of different size silicon nanoclusters embedded in a SiO2 crystalline or amorphous matrix, with that of free-standing, hydrogenated and hydroxided silicon nanoclusters of corresponding size and shape. We find that the largest effect on the opto-electronic 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 of the absorption threshold, following the quantum confinement rule. Finally, through the calculation of the optical absorption spectra both in a indipendent-particle and 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.

Combining scanning tunneling microscopy and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we demonstrate how to tune the doping of epitaxial graphene from p to n by exploiting the structural changes that occur spontaneously on the Ge surface upon thermal annealing. Furthermore, using first-principle calculations, we build a model that successfully reproduces the experimental observations. Since the ability to modify graphene electronic properties is of fundamental importance when it comes to applications, our results provide an important contribution toward the integration of graphene with conventional semiconductors.

We predict the stability of a graphenelike silicene sheet on one monolayer of aluminum oxide. We find that the honeycomb buckled structure of silicene is not broken upon interaction with one monolayer of ${\mathrm{Al}}_{2}{\mathrm{O}}_{3}$ in the kagome geometry. As a consequence, the electronic band structure shows unperturbed cones with massless Dirac fermions embedded into ${\mathrm{Al}}_{2}{\mathrm{O}}_{3}$-derived bands. The heterostructure conserves the topological character of the freestanding silicene. The optical properties of the silicene/${\mathrm{Al}}_{2}{\mathrm{O}}_{3}$ bilayers clearly maintain the characteristic infrared universal limit of $\ensuremath{\pi}\ensuremath{\alpha}$. A quantized absorbance $N\ifmmode\cdot\else\textperiodcentered\fi{}\ensuremath{\pi}\ensuremath{\alpha}$ (with $N$ silicene layers) also occurs for stacking of multilayers.

The exotic electrodynamics properties of graphene come from the linearly dispersive electronic bands that host massless Dirac electrons. A similar behavior was predicted to manifest in freestanding silicene, the silicon counterpart of graphene, thereby envisaging a new route for silicon photonics. However, the access to silicene exploitation in photonics was hindered so far by the use of optically inappropriate substrates in experimentally realized silicene. Here we report on the optical conductivity of silicon nanosheets epitaxially grown on optically transparent Al2O3(0001) from a thickness of a few tens of nanometers down to the extreme two-dimensional (2D) limit. When a 2D regime is approached, a Dirac-like electrodynamics can be deduced from the observation of a low-energy optical conductivity feature owing to a silicene-based interfacing to the substrate. © 2018 American Chemical Society.

We study the electronic properties of two-dimensional (2D) group-III nitrides BN, AlN, GaN, InN, and TlN by first-principles approaches. With increasing group-III atomic number, a decrease of the electronic gap from 6.7 eV to 0 eV takes place. 2D GaN and 2D InN in honeycomb geometry present a direct gap at Γ, while the honeycomb structures of BN and AlN tend to be indirect semiconductors with the valence band maximum at K. Alloying of the nitrides allows tuning the gap with cation composition. Interestingly, Inx Ga1-xN and Inx Tl1-xN alloys enable, with varying x, to construct type I or type II heterostructures. We demonstrate that it is possible to tailor the electronic and optical response from UV to IR. We suggest that 2D InGaN and InTlN heterostructures may efficiently harvest light and serve as building blocks for a future generation of III-V solar cells. Finally, 2D InTlN with a low In content is eligible as the emitter and detector for THz applications.