Regular Article

2D Hexagonal SnTe monolayer: a quasi direct band gap semiconductor with strain sensitive electronic and optical properties

¹ Department of Physics, Kermanshah Branch, Islamic Azad University, Kermanshah, Iran
² Computational Laboratory for Advanced Materials and Structures, Advanced Institute of Materials Science, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
³ Faculty of Applied Sciences, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
⁴ Department, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
⁵ Physics Department, College of Science, Basrah University, Basrah, Iraq
⁶ Nanotechnology and Catalysis Research Center (NANOCAT), University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur 50603, Malaysia
⁷ Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, CTU in Prague, Technicka 4, Prague 6 166 07, Czech Republic

^a e-mail: dominhhoat@tdtu.edu.vn

Received: 9 November 2019
Received in final form: 7 January 2020
Published online: 18 February 2020

Abstract

The stability and electronic and optical properties of two-dimensional (2D) SnTe monolayer has been systematically studied by using first-principles calculations based on density functional theory. Our computations demonstrate that the predicted 2D SnTe monolayer is a stable quasi-direct semiconductor. Also, analysis of its electronic property shows that the ground state of this monolayer is a quasi-direct semiconductor with a band gap of ~2.00. This band gap can be effectively modulated by external strains. Investigation of optical properties shows that monolayer SnTe exhibits significant absorption and reflectivity in the ultraviolet region of the electromagnetic spectrum.