A Honeycomb BeN2 Sheet with a Desirable Direct Band Gap and High Carrier Mobility

Using global particle-swarm optimization method, we report, for the first time, a BeN2 sheet (h-BeN2) with a graphene-like honeycomb lattice but displaying a direct band gap. Symmetry group analysis indicates that the dipole transition is allowed between the conduction band minimum and the valence band maximum. Although the direct band gap of 2.23 eV is close to that (2.14 eV) of MoS2 sheet, the h-BeN2 sheet has additional advantages: the direct band gap feature of the h-BeN2 sheet is quite insensitive to the layer stacking pattern and layer number, in contrast to the well-known direct-to-indirect band gap transition observed in TMDs and h-BN sheets. When rolled up, all the resulting h-BeN2 nanotubes have direct band gaps independent of chirality and diameter. Furthermore, the intrinsic acoustic-phonon-limited carrier mobility of the h-BeN2 sheet can reach ∼10(5) cm(2) V(-1) s(-1) for electron and ∼10(4) cm(2) V(-1) s(-1) for hole, which are higher than that of MoS2 and black phosphorus.