Tunable electronic properties of van der Waals heterostructures composed of stanene adsorbed on two-dimensional, graphene-like nitrides

We investigated the structural stability and electronic properties of stanene/graphene-like nitride (stanene/XN, X = Al, B, and Ga) heterostructures using first-principles calculations. The results reveal that stanene interacts with BN (GaN) via van der Waals interactions with a binding energy of 93 meV (171 meV) per Sn atom. In contrast, the stanene/AlN heterostructure shows a strong inter-layer coupling, with a binding energy of 315 meV per Sn atom. The electronic structure of stanene/GaN shows a direct bandgap of 213 meV at the Dirac point. The stanene/AlN and stanene/GaN heterostructures have Schottky barriers of 1.383 and 1.243 eV, respectively, with p-type Schottky contacts. In addition, an n-type Schottky contact is formed in the stanene/BN heterostructure with a Schottky barrier of 2.812 eV. The results suggest that the studied heterostructures are potential candidates for stanene-based nanoelectronic applications. Published under license by AIP Publishing.