Regular Article

The strain induced type-II band re-alignment of blue phosphorus-GeX (X = C/H/Se) heterostructures

College of Physics and Electronic Engineering, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing 401331, P.R. China

^* e-mail: 172093818@163.com

Received: 7 November 2019
Accepted: 10 February 2020
Published online: 27 March 2020

Abstract

Efforts to efficiently use of the next generation 2-dimension (2D) structured monolayers is getting a lot of attention for their excellent properties recently. In this work, we composite the blue phosphorus (BP) and monolayer GeX (X = C/H/Se) via van der Waals force (vdW) interaction to obtain well defined type-II band alignment heterostructures. A systematic theoretic study is conducted to explore the interlayer coupling effects and the bands re-alignment of BP-GeX (X = C/H/Se) heterostructure after the strain imposed. To devise usable and efficient materials to degrade pollutant or used as a potential photovoltaic cell material, previous researches have proved that using 2D materials as components is a feasible way to obtain high performance. Here, we prudently present a comprehensive investigation on the BP and GeX (X = C/H/Se) with different twisted angles via first-principles calculation to lay a theoretical framework on the band alignment and carriers' separation. It reveals that the intrinsic electronic properties of BP and GeX are roughly preserved in the corresponding heterostructures. Upon strain applied, band alignment can be flexibly manipulated by varying external imposed strain. The heterostructures can maintain type-II character within a certain strain range, and thus the carriers are spatially separated to different portions. This work not only provides a deep insight into the construction of the heterostructure, but presents a new possibility to search for a flexible and feasible approach to promote its catalytic performance. The corresponding results would provide meaningful guidelines for designing 2D structure based novel materials.