Electric field effects on the electronic properties of the silicene-amine interface

We performed first-principles studies of electric field (EF) effects on the electronic properties of silicene-amine (NH3 and NH2CH3) hetero-interface systems focusing on the electronic interactions at the interface. The band gaps of the systems increase with a positive applied EF but decrease with a negative EF; that is, the band gaps monotonically vary on changing the applied EF from negative to positive. The phenomenon of band gap variation with the sign of the applied EF is a characteristic feature of hetero-interface systems. We revealed the mechanism of the electronic structure change in silicene-amine due to an applied EF by visualizing the electron density change. It is shown that the electronic polarizations in both the Si-N chemical bond region and the silicene-layer region determine the characteristic band gap variation. Furthermore, the tunable energy range of the band gap of the silicene-amine is considerably higher than the range of a silicene monolayer; thus, the idea of controlling the band gaps of hetero-interface systems in combination with application of an EF bias is suitable for designing various devices that are difficult to fabricate with homogeneous two-dimensional materials such as silicene and graphene.