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Published on: February 27, 2017
Predicting the structural, electronic and magnetic properties of few atomic-layer polar perovskite
Shaowen Xu1, Fanhao Jia1, Shunbo Hu1
1Physics Department, International Center for Quantum and Molecular Structures, Shanghai Key Laboratory of High Temperature Superconductors, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China. renwei@shu.edu.cn and Materials Genome Institute, State Key Laboratory of Advanced Special Steel, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China.
Abstract:
Density functional theory (DFT) calculations are performed to predict the structural, electronic and magnetic properties of electrically neutral or charged few-atomic-layer (AL) oxides based on polar perovskite KTaO3. Their properties vary greatly with the number of ALs (nAL) and the stoichiometric ratio. In the few-AL limit (nAL ≤ 14), the even AL (EL) systems with the chemical formula (KTaO3)n are semiconductors, while the odd AL (OL) systems with the formula Kn+1TanO3n+1 or KnTan+1O3n+2 are half-metal except for the unique KTa2O5 case which is a semiconductor due to the large Peierls distortions. After reaching a certain critical thickness (nAL > 14), the EL systems show ferromagnetic surface states, while ferromagnetism disappears in the OL systems. These predictions from fundamental complexity of polar perovskite when approaching the two-dimensional (2D) limit may be helpful for interpreting experimental observations later.
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