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5.0047430.pdf | Ferroelectric gate control of Rashba–Dresselhaus
spin–orbit coupling in ferromagnetic
semiconductor (Zn, Co)O
Cite as: Appl. Phys. Lett. 119, 012403 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0047430
Submitted: 13 February 2021 .Accepted: 23 June 2021 .
Published Online: 7 July 2021
Maoxiang Fu,1Jiahui Liu,1
Qiang Cao,2
Zhen Zhang,1Guolei Liu,1,a)
Shishou Kang,1
Yanxue Chen,1
Shishen Yan,1,2Liangmo Mei,1and Zhen-Dong Sun1,3,a)
AFFILIATIONS
1School of Physics, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China
2Spintronics Institute, University of Jinan, Jinan 250022, China
3School of Physics and Electrical Engineering, Kashi University, Kashgar 844006, China
a)Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed: liu-guolei@sdu.edu.cn and zdsun@sdu.edu.cn
ABSTRACT
In this paper, we demonstrate the ferroelectric gate control of Rashba–Dresselhaus spin–orbit coupling (R–D SOC) in a hybrid
heterostructure consisting of a ferromagnetic semiconductor channel (Zn, Co)O(0001) and a ferroelectric substrate PMN-PT(111). The R–D
SOC causes a transverse spin current via the charge-spin conversion, which results in unbalanced transverse spin and charge accumulations
due to the spin-polarized band in the ferromagnetic (Zn, Co)O channel. By the reversal of gated ferroelectric polarization, we observed 55%modulation of the R–D SOC correlated Hall resistivity to the magnetization correlated anomalous Hall resistivity and 70% modulation of thelow-field magnetoresistance at 50 K. Our experimental results pave a way toward semiconductor-based spintronic-integrated circuits with anultralow power consumption in ferromagnetic semiconductors.
Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0047430
The electric field control of ferromagnetism and spin phenomena
has been intensively pursued in an information technique, since it
offers a promising method for ultra-low power spin manipulation.
1–3
The electric field control of magnetic properties has been demon-strated in several classes of materials such as ferromagnetic semicon-ductors (In, Mn)As,
4(Ga, Mn)As,5–13(In, Fe)Sb,14(Ti, Co)O 2,15
ultrathin ferromagnetic metals,16–20and complex oxides.3,21,22By
applying the gate voltage on the ferromagnetic semiconductor chan-
nel, the accumulated (or depleted) carriers enhance (or suppress) the
carrier density leading to the modulation of magnetization and theCurie temperature, and this type of electric field control of ferromag-
netism can be attributed to the carrier-mediated ferromagne-
tism.
4,6,14,15On the other hand, on device concept of the spin field
effect transistor (spin-FET),23,24the electric field controlled Rashba25
and Dresselhaus26(R–D) spin–orbit coupling (SOC) is an effective
and essential way to generate and manipulate a spin-polarized current
in nanostructures without an external magnetic field. The Rashba
SOC is due to the structure inversion asymmetry, and the Dresselhaus
SOC is due to the bulk inversion asymmetry. The electric field con-
trolled Rashba as well as Dresselhaus SOC has been demonstrated andextensively studied in non-magnetic semiconductor heterostructuresin the past decades.
24However, the electric field controlled R–D SOC
has not yet been realized experimentally in the materials of the ferro-
magnetic semiconductor.
In this paper, we utilize the gated ferroelectric polarization to
control the R–D SOC in the hybrid heterostructure (Zn, Co)O(0001)/
PMN-PT(111). The ferromagnetic semiconductor (Zn, Co)O films are
n-type conductivity, and a space charge region is formed by applying
t h eg a t ev o l t a g eo nt h ef e r r o e l e c t r i cs u b s t r a t eP M N - P T .T h ep o l eo f
ferroelectric polarization induces the built-in electric field inside the(Zn, Co)O channel and also causes the variation of charge density, as
shown in Fig. 1(a) . The Rashba spin–orbit coupling is ascribed to the
structure inversion asymmetry of the (Zn, Co)O/PMN-PT hetero-strocture and the time inversion asymmetry of ferromagnetism in (Zn,
Co)O. The Dresselhaus spin–orbit coupling is ascribed to the bulk
inversion asymmetry of the wurtzite structure ZnO. The Hamiltonian
by using the k/C1pmethod can be written as H
R¼aRðrxky/C0rykxÞ
andHD¼c½bkz/C0ðk2
xþk2
yÞ/C138ðrxky/C0rykxÞ,27,28where pxðyÞandrxðyÞ
are the components of the electronic momentum operator and the
spin Pauli matrices, respectively, and aRand bDare Rashba and
Dresselhaus parameters, respectively. Both of the Rashba andDresselhaus SOCs are coexisted. Figure 1(b) shows the diagram of
Appl. Phys. Lett. 119, 012403 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0047430 119, 012403-1
Published under an exclusive license by AIP PublishingApplied Physics Letters ARTICLE scitation.org/journal/aplspin-split of R–D SOC in the k-space without magnetization.24,27It is
noted that there is a lack of spin-momentum locking due to the pre-
sentation of ferromagnetic exchange coupling in ferromagnetic (Zn,
Co)O, though it coexists with the R–D exchange coupling. On the
reversal of gated ferroelectric polarization, the R–D SOC results in two
aspects: (1) the modulation of the spin-polarized band structure in fer-
romagnetic (Zn, Co)O, which relates to a modulated spin-polarized
current and (2) a transverse spin accumulation and an unbalanced
transverse charge accumulation due to the charge-spin conversion,
which corresponds to the Rashba–Edelstein effect in ferromagnetic(Zn, Co)O. In this paper, we reported the ferroelectric gate controlled
R–D SOC in the hybrid heterostructure (Zn, Co)O/PMN-PT through
the measurements of the Anomalous Hall effect (AHE) and longitudi-
nal magnetoresistance, where AHE is a magnetic response of itinerant
band carriers caused by asymmetric carrier scattering in the presence
of SOC.
29
The high quality (Zn, Co)O thin films in a thickness of
50–100 nm were epitaxially grown on ferroelectric substrates PMN-
PT(111) with a 3 nm ZnO buffer layer by using radio frequency
oxygen plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy. A smooth and high
quality interface is very important to eliminate a residual space charge
for the efficient carrier transmitting across the interface. The (Zn,
Co)O thin film is doped with a high Co concentration 45% to achieve
giant magnetization and strong AHE with the high Curie temperature.
For Hall measurements, introducing tiny dose of donor dopants Ga of0.2% in atoms increases the conductivity of the (Zn, Co)O film, which
helps to enhance the output Hall voltage. The growth temperature is
400/C14C under the oxygen partial pressure 3 /C210/C05Pa. The growth of
(Zn, Co)O film is monitored by real time reflected high energy elec-
tron deflection, and its chemical states are carried out by in situ x-ray
photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The crystal structure is character-
ized by high resolution x-ray diffraction (HRXRD). Magnetization is
measured by a quantum designed superconducting quantum interfer-
ence device (SQUID). Detailed growth and characterization refers to
our previous works.30Hall effect is measured in the geometry of a Van
der Pauw method in the size of 5 /C25m m2. The sheet resistivity of
(Zn, Co)O thin films can be chemically tuned by introducing Ga
donor dopants with the carrier density in the range of
/C241018–1019cm/C03for different purposes of the Hall effect and magne-
toresistance measurements.30Four Au electric contacts are deposited
through mask shades by magnetron sputtering for the Hall and MR
measurements, where (Zn, Co)O is not only a magnetic semiconduc-
tor channel but also the top electric conducting layer.
Figure 1(a) shows the schematic cross section of the hybrid heter-
ostructure (Zn, Co)O(0001)/PMN-PT(111). By applying the gate volt-
age between the ferroelectric substrates PMN-PT, the pole of
ferroelectric polarization causes a space charge region, which induces a
build-in electric field inside the (Zn, Co)O channel and the variation
of charge density. The induced electric field results in the R–D SOC in
the (Zn, Co)O layer.24,27When the direction of ferroelectric
FIG. 1. (a) Cross section of the induced electric field and the carrier variation inside the (Zn, Co)O channel and related ferroelectric polarization in the PM N-PT substrate.
(b) Schematic diagram of spin splitting of Rashba and Dresselhaus SOC in the k-space without magnetization. (c) Sheet resistance of (Zn, Co)O thin film s at 300 K as a
function of the gate voltage Vgate, where a resistance platform refers to electron accumulation and depletion states. (d) Time duration measurements of a sheet resistance by
applying the period pulse gating voltages ( þ300,/C0300 V). Gating voltage lasts 30 s at a 10 min interval.Applied Physics Letters ARTICLE scitation.org/journal/apl
Appl. Phys. Lett. 119, 012403 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0047430 119, 012403-2
Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishingpolarization points upward, it attracts more electrons from the electric
circuit and forms an electron accumulation state in the (Zn, Co)O
channel, vice versa, the downward ferroelectric polarization forms an
electron depletion state in the (Zn, Co)O channel. Figure 1(c) shows
the sheet resistance of the (Zn, Co)O channel by applying the gatevoltage, where the resistance platforms correspond to a high resistivity
state (HRS) and a low resistivity state (LRS) as shown in Fig. 1(a) .H R S
refers to the electron depletion state with carrier density 4.7/C210
18cm/C03and LRS to the electron accumulation state with carrier
density 1.8 /C21018cm/C03. The modulation ratio of HRS to LRS is
HR
LR¼533%, and the modulation ratio of carrier density is 261%. In
this paper, without loss of generality, we study the electron accumula-
tion and depletion states by applying the remanent polarization P r,where P rþrefers to upward polarization and Pr-to downward polari-
zation. Figure 1(d) shows the duration measurements of resistance
by applying the period gating voltages þ300 V /C00/C0/C0 300 V /C00
/C0þ300 V, where the gate voltage lasts 30 s at a 10 min interval. It
indicates that by the reversal of ferroelectric polarization, the transitionbetween HRS (or electron depletion state) and LRS (or electron accu-
mulation state) is reversible and repeatable.
It is necessary to exclude from the magnetostriction effect and
carrier induced magnetization by the reversal of ferroelectric polariza-tion. Figure 2(a) shows the HRXRD h–2hscans of the (Zn, Co)O
channel in the growth direction at electron accumulation (P
rþ)a n d
depletion (P r-) states. The unchanged lattice constant indicates
the same piezoelectric strain at accumulation and depletion states.
FIG. 2. (a) High resolution x-ray diffraction h–2hscans for (Zn, Co)O films at the electron accumulation state (blue line, P rþ) and the depletion state (red line, P r/C0). The inset shows
theh–2hscans by the reversal of ferroelectric polarization 10 times. (b) XPS of Co 2p 1/2and 2p 3/2peaks and their satellites at electron accumulation and depletion states. The mag-
netic hysteresis loops of (Zn, Co)O films at electron accumulation (blue solid lines) and depletion (red solid lines) states at (c) 300, (d) 150, (e) 50, (f) 20, (g) 10, and (h) 5 K.Applied Physics Letters ARTICLE scitation.org/journal/apl
Appl. Phys. Lett. 119, 012403 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0047430 119, 012403-3
Published under an exclusive license by AIP PublishingFigure 2(b) shows the XPS measurements for Co 2p 1/2,2 p 3/2photo-
emission peaks and their satellites at accumulation and depletion
states, which indicates that the chemical states of cobalt dopants are
not affected by the carrier variation. For further measurements, wechecked the magnetization of the (Zn, Co)O film at accumulation anddepletion states by using SQUID. Figures 2(c)–2(h) show the tempera-
ture dependent magnetic hysteresis loops at accumulation and deple-
tion states, which indicates that magnetization has nearly no influenceon the variation of carrier density except that there is /C243% change of
the superparamagnetic background at 5 K. It is known that theferromagnetism of (Zn, Co)O is attributed to the percolation of bound
magnetic polarons (BMPs).
31Our previous work of angle resolved
photoemission spectroscopy shows that the impurity states of Co dop-
ants in the case of diluted Co concentration are deep below the Fermilevel, and the impurity states disperse close to the Fermi level when theCo concentration increases up to 40%.
30The character of deep impu-
rity states explains why magnetization is not affected by the carrier
variation. In other side, because of the inhomogeneous distribution ofBMP, (Zn, Co)O coexists multiple magnetic phases: the ferromagneticregion with a long-rang percolation of BMP and superparamagnetic
FIG. 3. Anomalous Hall resistivity qAHE
yx as a function of the magnetic field for the 50 nm (Zn, Co)O film doped with 0.2% of Ga at as-grown, electron accumulation, and deple-
tion states at (a)50, (b)150, and (c)300 K. The applied current is 1 mA. (d) Diagram of Hall measurements in the geometry of the van der Pauw method in a device size of
5/C25m m2. (e) Temperature dependent resistivity qxxat as-grown, electron accumulation, and depletion states. The inset is the plot of ln qxxvsT/C01=4. (f) Temperature depen-
dent carrier density n at as-grown, electron accumulation, and depletion states.Applied Physics Letters ARTICLE scitation.org/journal/apl
Appl. Phys. Lett. 119, 012403 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0047430 119, 012403-4
Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishingclusters with short-rang BMPs,32where the accumulation charges
enhance the enhancement of a superparamagnetic phase at low tem-
perature 5 K.
Figures 3(a)–3(c) show the evolution of anomalous Hall resistiv-
ityqAHE
yxas a function of magnetic field at as-grown, accumulation and
depletion states at 300, 150, and 50 K, where the ordinary Hall resistiv-
ity has been subtracted linearly from the raw Hall data. A large signal
ofqAHE
yxis achieved due to the giant magnetization of (Zn, Co)O films
with a high Co concentration (45%). In Fig. 3(c) ,t h em a g n i t u d e so f
qAHE
yxat 50 K are 2.0, 2.6, and 3.5 lXcm at accumulation, as-grown,
and depletion states, respectively, which indicates that qAHE
yxis ferro-
electric tunable. As expected, qAHE
yxhas two origins: the spontaneous
magnetization and R–D SOC: qAHE
yx¼RsMþqSOC
yx. At a fixed ferro-
electric polarization, we find out that qAHE
yx remains constant ontemperature in the range of 50–300 K, and it also remains constant on
the carrier density in the range of 1.8–6.0 /C21019cm/C03,a ss h o w ni n
Fig. 3 . Therefore, the magnitude of qAHE
yxdepends on magnetization
and gated ferroelectric polarization, and it has no influence on thepure carrier variation.
30We also checked the temperature dependent
resistivity qxxand the linear fitting of ln qxx/T/C01
4,33which indicates
the Mott variable range hopping at as-grown, accumulation, and
depletion states, as shown in Fig. 3 . At accumulation and depletion
states, we have excluded of the possible magnetic origins of magneto-striction and carrier induced magnetization. The contribution of R
sM
is constant for the fixed magnetization, while the contribution of qSOC
yx
is gated controlled. For a simple estimation, we assume that the R–D
SOC is symmetric at accumulation and depletion states, then thevariation of q
SOC
yxbetween accumulation and depletion states is:
FIG. 4. (a) Diagram of MR measurements in a device size of 5 /C25m m2. (b) Plots of temperature dependent longitudinal resistivity qxxfor a 100 nm (Zn, Co)O film, the inset
shows ln qxxas a function of T/C01=2.l nqxxis linearly depended on T/C01=2at low temperature, and the solid lines show the fitting curve. Plots of MR at electron accumulation
and depletion states at (c) 300, (d) 150, (e) 50, (f) 20, (g) 10, and (h) 5 K. The applied charge current is 100 nA at 5 and 10 K, 1 lA at 20 K, and 10 lA at 50–300 K. Solid lines
in (e) and (f) are fitting the MR curve by using Eq. (1)with the fitting parameters in Table S2 of the supplementary material .Applied Physics Letters ARTICLE scitation.org/journal/apl
Appl. Phys. Lett. 119, 012403 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0047430 119, 012403-5
Published under an exclusive license by AIP PublishingDqSOC
yx¼½qAHE
yxðdepletion Þ/C0qAHE
yxðaccumulation Þ/C138 ¼ 1:5lXcm, and
the contribution of RSM¼½qAHE
yxðdepletion ÞþqAHE
yxðaccumulation Þ/C138=2
¼2:75lXcm. Then we can estimate the modulation of AHE by the
gated ferroelectric polarizationDqSOC
yx
RSM¼55%. The R–D SOC exerts an
efficient transverse magnetic field, which results in a spin–orbit torque
on the magnetization. However, we do not observe the spin–orbit tor-
que in our experiments.
We carried out the magnetoresistance (MR) measurements in
the (Zn, Co)O film to study the spin-dependent scattering under gatedferroelectric polarization. MR is defined as MRðHÞ¼½ q
xxðHÞ
/C0qxxð0Þ/C138=qxxð0Þ,w h e r e qxxðHÞis the resistivity at magnetic field
Hperpendicular to the (Zn, Co)O film. Figure 4(a) shows the sche-
matic diagram of MR measurements in a device size of 5 /C25c m2.
Figure 4(b) shows the temperature dependent qxx(0T) and qxx(1.5T)
at electron accumulation and depletion states. The linear fitting of
lnqxxdepending on T/C01=2at low temperature indicates Efros variable
range hopping (VRH)34at electron accumulation and depletion states.
Figure 4(c)–4(h) show the low field MR- Hcurves for the accumulation
and depletion states at 300, 150, 50, 20, 10, and 5 K. The MR– Hcurves
show clear hysteresis characteristics, in which the two peak positionsagree with the coercivity of the (Zn, Co)O layer. This finding indicates
that MR has the same magnetic origins as magnetization in the (Zn,
Co)O layer. Concerning to the magnitude modulation of MR by agated ferroelectric polarization, we estimate the variation DMR at tem-
perature 50 K by applying the magnetic field 2 T for the accumulation
and depletion states,
DMR
MR min¼70%. For a qualitative interpretation, the
hysteretic MRis attributed to spin dependent scattering according to
the phenomenological model of spin-dependent Efros VRH,34where
the resistivity qxxcan be written as
qxx¼q0
1þP2hcoshiexphTESi
T/C18/C19 1
2
; (1)
where hTESioriginates from sum of the effective Coulomb interaction
and the effective exchange coupling interaction, Pis the carrier spin
polarization ratio, q0is a resistance prefacter, hcoshi¼m2with m
stands for the reduced magnetization of whole system, and his the
angle between the occupied state and the final vacant state. To avoid
the influence of a high-field magnetoresistance, we use qxx(1.5T) as a
saturated magnetization state ( hcoshi¼1) and qxx(0T) as a hcoshi
¼0 state to fit qxxandhTESiat accumulation and depletion states.
Figures 4(e) and4(f)show the fitting curves at 50 and 20 K by using
Eq.(1), where the fitting matches well with experimental measure-
ments. The fitting parameters are shown in Table S2 of the supple-
mentary material . According to the phenomenological model, we may
evaluate the spin polarization, which is 21% at the accumulation state
and 28% at the depletion state. The larger spin polarization at thedepletion state indicates the larger equivalent spin splitting due to
the exchange coupling and R–D SOC, which agrees to a larger q
AHE
yxat
the depletion state. The results of MR measurements provide anotherexperimental evidence of ferroelectric controlled R–D SOC in (Zn,Co)O. We also check that the ferroelectric controlled MR in (Zn,
Co)O has no dependence on the applied current and the external mag-
netic field in contrast with the unidirectional magnetoresistance in theRashba system,
35–37where the measurements are shown in Fig. S4 of
thesupplementary material .In conclusion, we have epitaxially grown the hybrid heterostruc-
ture (Zn, Co)O(0001)/PMN-PT(111) by MBE. We observed the ferro-electric gate controlled AHE in the (Zn, Co)O layer and
q
AHE
yx¼RsMþqSOC
yx. It also shows that qAHE
yxis not influenced by the
variation of temperature and the carrier density at fixed ferroelectric
polarization. The modulation change isDqSOC
yx
RSM¼55% between the
accumulation and depletion states. MR measurements provide another
experimental evidence for ferroelectric controlled R–D SOC in (Zn,Co)O. The calculated spin polarization is 21% at the accumulationstate and 28% at the depletion state, respectively. Our experimentalresults pave a way toward semiconductor spintronic-integrated circuitswith ultralow power consumption.
See the supplementary material for crystal and magnetization of
(Zn, Co)O, MR for the Ga
0.002(Zn, Co)O film, and detailed R–T
fitting.
This research was partially supported by the Natural Science
Foundation of Shandong Province Nos. ZR2019MA023 andZR2020ZD28, the National Natural Science Foundation of ChinaNos. 12074216 and 11974145, 111 Project B13029, and the StateKey Project of Fundamental Research of China under Grant No.2015CB921402.
DATA AVAILABILITY
The data that support the findings of this study are available
within the article and its supplementary material .
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5.0054874.pdf | The Journal
of Chemical PhysicsARTICLE scitation.org/journal/jcp
Understanding carbon dioxide capture
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theory: The case of MIL-53(X), with X =Fe3+, Al3+,
and Cu2+
Cite as: J. Chem. Phys. 155, 024701 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0054874
Submitted: 22 April 2021 •Accepted: 18 June 2021 •
Published Online: 9 July 2021
Giane B. Damas,1,2,a)
Luciano T. Costa,3
Rajeev Ahuja,1
and C. Moyses Araujo1,4,a)
AFFILIATIONS
1Materials Theory Division, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, 75120 Uppsala, Sweden
2Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, Linköping University, 58330 Linköping, Sweden
3MolMod-CS- Department of Physical-Chemistry, Campus Valonguinho, Institute of Chemistry,
Fluminense Federal University, Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
4Department of Engineering and Physics, Karlstad University, 65188 Karlstad, Sweden
a)Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed: giane.benvinda.damas@liu.se and moyses.araujo@physics.uu.se
ABSTRACT
Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) constitute a class of three-dimensional porous materials that have shown applicability for carbon dioxide
capture at low pressures, which is particularly advantageous in dealing with the well-known environmental problem related to the carbon
dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. In this work, the effect of changing the metallic center in the inorganic counterpart of MIL-53 (X),
where X=Fe3+, Al3+, and Cu2+, has been assessed over the ability of the porous material to adsorb carbon dioxide by means of first-principles
theory. In general, the non-spin polarized computational method has led to adsorption energies in fair agreement with the experimental
outcomes, where the carbon dioxide stabilizes at the pore center through long-range interactions via oxygen atoms with the axial hydroxyl
groups in the inorganic counterpart. However, spin-polarization effects in connection with the Hubbard corrections, on Fe 3 dand Cu 3 d
states, were needed to properly describe the metal orbital occupancy in the open-shell systems (Fe- and Cu-based MOFs). This methodology
gave rise to a coherent high-spin configuration, with five unpaired electrons, for Fe atoms leading to a better agreement with the experimental
results. Within the GGA +U level of theory, the binding energy for the Cu-based MOF is found to be E b=−35.85 kJ/mol, which is within the
desirable values for gas capture applications. Moreover, it has been verified that the adsorption energetics is dominated by the gas–framework
and internal weak interactions.
©2021 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0054874
I. INTRODUCTION
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has pointed
out an expected average temperature of 1.5○C higher than the pre-
industrial levels in less than 35 years, as the most abundant green-
house gas, carbon dioxide, has reached an increase in 3.3 ppm
(0.83%) in one year of analysis, which corresponds to an overall
increase of about 145% compared to the pre-industrial levels.1In
this context, great efforts are necessary from different sectors of our
society for a further change in the current scenario.2,3The carboncapture and storage (CCS) program4–6has different technologies
to partially deal with the carbon emissions, finding applications in
several industrial installations that include thermodynamic power
plants and steel production. In the post-combustion approach, car-
bon dioxide is captured from the gas stream due to its affinity
to amine-based solutions.7–9In general, these compounds present
kinetically favored reactivity with carbon dioxide, as well as low
solubility of hydrocarbon compounds that are quite interesting.10
Nonetheless, the low selectivity in the presence of sulfur dioxide
and the high energy necessary for solvent regeneration represent a
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major problem for capture-related applications.11Thus, the devel-
opment and synthesis of new chemical absorbers that can address
these problems without losing the capacity for gas adsorption are
highly desired.6
Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) constitute a class of three-
dimensional porous materials formed by interconnecting inorganic
and organic counterparts, which has found large applicability in
this field.12–16In particular, the MIL-53 frameworks comprise an
inorganic region formed by the metallic centers connecting oxy-
gen atoms from hydroxyl groups (axial positions) or benzene dicar-
boxylate (BDC) ligands (equatorial positions) in an octahedral con-
figuration.17–19In recent years, the applicability of this series has
been widely evaluated by means of experimental14,18,20–25and the-
oretical methods17,26for gas adsorption, including carbon diox-
ide,14,18,20–23,26,27methane,18,23,25,26and hydrogen sulfide.24
In general, the presence of open metal sites with appropri-
ate geometry and pore size in metal–organic frameworks is directly
associated with high adsorption capacity and selectivity.12,28Addi-
tionally, the material should present high heat or enthalpy of
adsorption for good performance at low pressures.28This important
macroscopic quantity is directly associated with the gas–framework
interaction strength, which is expected to be strong enough to main-
tain the latter inside the pore through weak interactions at the end
of the process and also provide a suitable post-processing based cat-
alytic reaction where the activated carbon dioxide can be converted
in raw materials.29On the other hand, the ideal condition of process
reversibility is maintained with intermediate values for this quantity.
It is important to emphasize that further developments in
the field are still made necessary in order to turn these mate-
rials competitive in an industrial point of view. In this context,
different strategies have been proposed to improve the perfor-
mance of metal–organic frameworks for gas capture applications.
In analogy with the amine-based solvents that are traditionally
employed in post-combustion methods, the functionalization by
amine groups has been widely considered to increase the storage
capacity and selectivity by improving the interaction strength with
carbon dioxide.13,27,28,30For instance, Hu et al.13have evaluated the
effects of anchoring alkylamine groups in unsaturated Cr3+cen-
ters of MOF-101 at room temperature conditions. In their series,
the diethylenetriamine-functionalized MOF exhibits the best CO 2
uptake (3.5 mmol g−1) even with a significant reduction in the sur-
face area. In another work, 2-aminoterephthalic acid has been tested
as an organic linker in an amino-functionalized Cu-based MOF
to increase the gas uptake to 5.85 mmol g−1.15Methacrylamides
have also been employed to enhance the carbon dioxide capture in
MOFs.31
Furthermore, pore functionalization by other chemical groups,
including methyl, hydroxyl, and carboxyl groups, has been
reported.12,27,28In this sense, Torrisi et al.27have shown that embed-
ding carboxyl and hydroxyl groups into MIL-53(Al3+) is particu-
larly advantageous for gas capture applications in comparison to
amine functionalities. Nonetheless, anchoring chemical groups in
metal–organic frameworks is not always straightforward in a practi-
cal point of view since the synthesis conditions, given by high pres-
sures and temperatures, do not favor the anchoring process of sev-
eral chemical functionalities.32To overcome this issue, Yan et al.32
have initially synthesized the template with active amine groups that
were further substituted by the desired acetic acid and trimesoylchloride groups. Although still containing amine groups in the struc-
ture, the extra adsorption sites promote an increase of about ∼20%
in gas uptake by the resulting MOFs when compared to the initial
amine-functionalized material.32
Traces of water can also affect the adsorption capacity
and selectivity for carbon dioxide capture in a gas mixture.33–36
Huang et al. have found that strong interactions between water
molecules and the framework lead to enhanced water adsorption
that could be beneficial or not for gas capture.24In another work,
Siegelman et al. have found an improvement in efficiency by an
amine-functionalized Mg-based MOF due to hydrogen-bonding
interactions between water molecules and carbamate nitrogen
atoms, which favor carbon dioxide binding.37However, it is more
common that trace amounts of water can exert a negative impact on
the adsorption capacity.33For instance, Liu et al.33have verified a
decrease in carbon dioxide adsorption from 3.74 to 2.69 mol/kg in
a Ni-based MOF with water traces besides the negative effect on the
CO 2/N2selectivity.
This work aims at understanding the influence of the metal-
lic center from MIL-53 (X), where X =Fe3+, Al3+, or Cu2+, on
the carbon dioxide capture. Such analysis is performed on a ther-
modynamic point of view by means of first-principles calculations
based on density functional theory (DFT). The outcomes suggest
that the organic counterpart of the metal–organic framework also
participates in the adsorption energetics as the oxygen atoms in
this region and hydroxyl groups interact in a different extent in
each material. In general, the non-spin polarized results have shown
consistency to describe the energetics for these systems, but the
open shell configuration exhibited by Fe- and Cu-based MOFs is
better described with inclusion of such effects. Additionally, the
Hubbard corrections have led to a consistent description of the
atomic magnetic moment for the metallic center in these systems,
a property that has been found to affect severely the adsorption
energetics.
II. COMPUTATIONAL METHODS
The applicability of metal–organic frameworks to gas capture
at low pressures has direct association with certain macroscopic
properties, such as adsorption capacity and heat/enthalpy of
adsorption.12,28The latter has a thermodynamic definition
that requires the inclusion of thermal corrections to the total
energies for its full assessment, i.e., zero point energies and thermal
effects acting over the internal energy of each system, but the main
contributing term is the total energy itself.17Hence, variations
in this property prior and posterior to adsorption give a reliable
estimation of the enthalpy of reaction/adsorption that is crucial
to evaluate how good the material is for gas capture. From a
microscopic standpoint, such variations are generally dictated
by the interaction strength between the metal–organic framework
and the guest molecule (carbon dioxide), namely, the binding
energy (E b).
Therefore, the heat/enthalpy of adsorption has been assessed by
calculating the binding energy (E b) of the solid-state system within
the framework of the density functional theory (DFT) as imple-
mented in the Vienna Ab-Initio Simulation Package (VASP).38Fur-
ther details on the computational methodology for modeling the
metal–organic framework are given in Subsections II A and II B.
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A. Bulk structures
To model the metal–organic frameworks here under consid-
eration, the crystallographic data of MIL-53 (Fe3+) reported by
Millange et al have been used .39The original structure has been
modified to include hidden hydrogen atoms at the inorganic region,
more specifically at the oxygen atoms that are displaced in axial posi-
tions related to the metallic center.17Furthermore, it was necessary
to remove the water molecules lying inside the pores in order to
activate the material for gas adsorption (Fig. 1).40
The Perdew–Burke–Ernzerhof (PBE) functional41was the
functional of choice to treat the exchange-correlation potential in
the initial solid-state calculations, as it has provided good agree-
ment with experimental data obtained for the evaluation of similar
thermodynamic properties in previous reports.42–45In the current
study, the ionic relaxations were carried out until the total ener-
gies reached the convergence criterion of 1.0 ×10−3eV. Dispersion
effects and weak interactions were taken into account by including
the D3-Grimme corrections46in all steps. The plane wave-basis set
was defined with a cutoff energy of 800 eV after convergence tests
in the sampled region (400–1000 eV). The Brillouin zone was sam-
pled by a 2 ×2×4 Monkhorst–Pack k-point mesh. Spin-polarization
effects were further considered for the frameworks with an open
shell configuration [MIL-53 (X), where X =Fe3+and Cu2+]. Alterna-
tively, the lattice parameters have been fully relaxed for these systems
as displayed in Table S1 of the supplementary material.
The electronic structure has been attained by calculating the
density of states (DOS) and its projected components (pDOS) onFe, Al, Cu, C, O, and H atoms. As the semi-local generalized gradi-
ent approximation (GGA) functional fails to describe the bandgap of
semiconducting materials, Hubbard corrections have been applied
on Fe 3 dand Cu 3 dstates through spin-polarized static calculations
within the tetrahedron method with Blöchl corrections. The partial
occupancies for each orbital have also been determined by using the
Gaussian smearing for visual analysis of the orbital hybridization.
Here, the assessment of the electronic structure is basically intended
to complement the material description.
B. Structure model
The gas capture process has been evaluated by expanding the
initial bulk structure into a 2 ×2 supercell aiming to avoid adsor-
bate interactions with their respective images in the periodic system.
Initially, it has been assumed that the pore structures do not vary
in a significant way upon gas uptake by allowing partial relaxation
of the system, i.e., the ionic positions. This is an oversimplifica-
tion that is expected to describe the gas adsorption process in a
proper way. Nonetheless, we have also considered eventual changes
in the crystal lattice by enabling full relaxation of the system. These
results are briefly discussed in this publication. In the former case,
the partial relaxations were performed within the Γ-point with a
plane-wave cutoff energy of 550 eV. A tighter energy convergence
criterion has been applied for electronic/ionic steps (1.0 ×10−5/1.0
×10−4eV) in order to guarantee that the global minimum on the
potential energy surface (PES) has been reached. The final atomic
forces over the metal–organic frameworks are found to be less than
FIG. 1. Bulk structure of MIL-53 (Fe3+) after ionic position relaxation at the PBE/800 eV level of theory including spin-polarization effects. In detail, it is possible to observe
the narrow pore structure of this material. The red, gray, and white spheres correspond to oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen atoms, respectively, whereas the golden sphere is
representative of Fe, Al, or Cu. Code: VASP.
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0.01 and 0.03 eV/Å for the pore structure and the guest molecule,
respectively. The GGA +U relaxations have been carried out using
U=7 eV and J =1 eV as Hubbard parameters on Fe 3 dand Cu 3 d
states, while employing the same energy convergence criteria for the
electronic/ionic steps.
The binding energy E bof the adsorbed species to the frame-
work has been calculated by subtracting the total energy prior and
posterior to the adsorption, i.e.,
Eb=EMOF−gas−(EMOF+Egas), (1)
where E MOF-gas is the total energy of the gas–framework system and
the last terms correspond to the individual total energies before
adsorption. Zero-point energies and thermal corrections are not
considered in this definition. Effects of spin-polarization and Hub-
bard corrections (GGA +U) on Fe 3 dand Cu 3 dstates over the
quantity expressed by Eq. (1) have also been evaluated for the Fe-
and Cu-based metal–organic frameworks.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A. Bulk structures
In order to evaluate how the metallic center affects the ability
of a non-functionalized metal–organic framework to capture carbon
dioxide, we have considered the bulk structure from MIL-53 (Fe3+)
with a diamond-shape pore, also called the narrow pore form. This
material crystallizes in a P2 1/c space group with unit cell dimensions
given by a =19.32 Å, b =15.04 Å, c=6.84 Å, and β=96.3○. Initially,
lattice parameters have been constrained during the relaxation step
in order to maintain the spatial group symmetry of the crystalline
structure. Table S1 shows that the optimization of lattice parameters
leads to a slight decrease of ∼1–2 Å of the blattice parameter and
variation of <2○in the lattice angles for these systems that are not
expected to affect the adsorption thermodynamics upon expansion
into the 2 ×2 supercell.
In MIL-53 (Fe3+), the inorganic counterpart formed by the iron
metallic center is linked to the benzene dicarboxylate (BDC) ligands
via oxygen atoms that are located in equatorial positions. In the axial
positions, the hydroxyl groups form a region that can interact with
the guest molecule as the hydrogen atoms are pointed out vertically
to the pore center, while not presenting any steric hindrance. In this
sense, the vertical distance between hydrogen atoms from different
inorganic counterparts has been calculated as d H–H=5.20–5.40 Å,
with iron atoms from adjacent parts being distanced by 19.32 Å.
Replacing the metallic center by aluminum or copper in MIL-53 (Al)
and MIL-53 (Cu) does not promote variations in the pore width
(∼19.3 Å), but its size is diminished for the aluminum case (d H–H
=5.11 Å). Additionally, there is a shortage in the Al–O chemical
bond of about ∼0.2 Å in comparison to Fe–O or Cu–O, which might
be resultant from a stronger interaction between the metallic center
and the oxygen connecting the organic counterpart. At this point,
it is necessary to emphasize that MIL-53 (Al3+) does not present
the same crystal structure as the iron-based material; thus, it is an
approximate model for this study.17
B. Electronic structure
This analysis has been primarily considered to validate the
density functional theory methodology, but also to establish thestructural parameters that are optimized during the relaxation pro-
cess, i.e., the ionic positions are always considered but the lattice
parameters are usually kept fixed throughout the relaxation.
MIL-53 (Fe3+) has shown photoactivity in the visible light
region with an experimental optical gap of 2.64 eV, which corre-
sponds to an absorption edge at λ=470 nm.47Furthermore, the
authors point out that the maximum absorption at λ=220 nm
is due to the ligand to metal charge transfer, O (II) →Fe (II).47
Figure 2 and Fig. S1 depict the density of states of MIL-53 (X), where
X=Fe3+, Al3+, and Cu2+, as obtained using the Gaussian smear-
ing and tetrahedron method with Blöchl corrections, respectively.
The latter choice is justified by the semiconducting nature of these
materials, which requires such a methodology for an appropriate
description of their intrinsic bandgaps, whereas the Gaussian
smearing facilitates the plot visualization.
For Fe- and Cu-based metal–organic frameworks, the GGA +U
methodology has been used to deal with the self-interaction prob-
lem from the GGA approximation to density functional theory that
often leads to an underestimated bandgap.48–50In this sense, these
calculations were performed in a static mode after spin-polarized
ionic relaxation within the PBE level of theory. These open-shell
systems present an octahedral dorbital splitting with the electron
occupancy in Cu d-orbitals expressed as (t3↑↓
2ge2↑,1↓
g), whereas the
magnetic moment ( μ) for Fe3+(4.5μb/atom) suggests a high-spin
state with electron occupancy given by (t3↑
2ge2↑
g).
An interesting point is that μfor oxygen atoms is slightly
increased at the hydroxyl groups in the Cu-based MOF
(∼0.3 μb/atom) in comparison with the Fe-based system
(<0.2μb/atom), which is not verified for the oxygen atoms
connected to the BDC ligands. Although the Cu-based MOF does
not exhibit a significant change in the atomic μfor the metallic
centers regarding the level of theory, the iron-based material does
have a significant variation in this property (1.0–4.0 μb) within
the PBE level, which would lead to Fe3+ions displaying different
electronic configurations along the symmetric crystal environment.
Such inaccuracy to describe the Fe-based MOF electronic structure
could affect the thermodynamic properties if this effect is not
propagated upon addition of the carbon dioxide molecule in the
further steps.
For MIL-53 (Fe3+), the optimum value for the Hubbard param-
eter on Fe 3 dstates was estimated to be U =7 eV and J =1 eV
to give a theoretical bandgap (E g=2.20 eV) that shows fair agree-
ment with the experimental report.47As displayed in Fig. 2(a),
this system has the valence band maximum (VBM) mainly com-
posed of O 2 porbitals connecting to the metallic center, which
persists until −2.6 eV. In the valence band, the spin-up contri-
butions from Fe 3 dstates have a rising contribution from ∼−0.3
to−0.7 eV, but the conduction band minimum (CBM) is basi-
cally determined by the position of the spin-down contributions
from these atoms. Fingerprints from C–H and O–H bonds can
be easily identified in the H 1 splot [Fig. 2(a)- bottom] with four
clear peaks in the interval from −1.8 to −5.7 eV that match well
with C 2 pstates and O 2 pstates that are present in the same
interval.
In Fig. S1(b), the calculated bandgap for MIL-53 (Al3+) is
Eg=3.23 eV, which also shows good agreement with the experi-
mental value reported by Guo et al. (Eexp=3.56 eV).51In the same
work, the authors have found that this material has an absorption
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FIG. 2. Density of states obtained for the metal–organic frameworks under investigation at the level of theory: PBE/800 eV for MIL-53 (Al3+) and GGA +U/800 eV, with
U=7 eV on Fe 3 dor Cu 3 dstates of MIL-53 (X =Fe3+, Cu2+). Code: VASP /Gaussian smearing method with σ=0.1.
edge at λ=348 nm; therefore, it would not exhibit activity in the
visible region for eventual photocatalytic purposes. Here, it is veri-
fied that the valence band is formed mainly of O 2 pand C 2 pstates
from the top ( −0.3 eV) until −2.3 eV. Al 3 pstates do not participate
in the VBM or CBM composition, which are prominent just in the
range of −2.1 to −7.1 eV with very low density of states ( <2.6 den-
sity of states/eV). In the VBM, a very low contribution from Al 3 s
states (0.11 DOS/eV) can be seen at −2.9 eV. This is the reason for
the large bandgap shown by this material, since the CBM is formed
by the overlapping of 2 pstates from carbon and oxygen atoms that
lie much higher in energy than the unoccupied dstates from Fe and
Cu atoms. Here, the C–H and O–H bonds are verified upon orbital
overlapping from −1.74 to −10.0 eV with four major peaks that are
shifted in about +0.25 eV compared to the Fe-based MOF.
As displayed in Fig. 2(c), MIL-53 (Cu2+) has a similar den-
sity of states profile shown by the iron-based system with Cu 3 d
unoccupied states lying much lower in energy compared to Fe 3 d
states. Therefore, the overlapping with unoccupied states from oxy-
gen atoms is promoted initially at +0.23 eV (1.4 eV lower than
Fe-based MOF) to significantly reduce the bandgap. On the other
hand, carbon unoccupied orbitals will just appear with a higher
intensity at about +3.0 eV. This material has a calculated bandgap
of E g=0.83 eV using U =7 eV and J =1 eV for Cu 3 dstates
[see Fig. S1(c)].
C. Gas capture
Figure 3 displays the adsorption sites (labeled by different num-
bers) here under consideration for CO 2capture. At site (1), the
interaction takes place via hydrogen atoms from hydroxyl groupsthat are connected to the metallic center in the axial positions. At
site (2), the interaction occurs with the ligand carbon and hydrogen
atoms through the oxygen atom. At site (3), the molecule is expected
to move freely inside the pore to interact via carbon or oxygen atoms.
Horizontal interactions with hydrogen from the BDC ligand have
been considered at site (4). Finally, at site (5), the guest molecule
has been placed to interact with both inorganic (via hydroxyl
groups) and organic (via carbon) counterparts. Table I contains
the gas–framework binding energies (E b) calculated via Eq. (1)
for all configurations (in kJ/mol). Inclusion of spin-polarization
has been considered at the third and fourth columns, in which
the latter column is estimated within the GGA +U level of the-
ory. The experimental values are available in the last column for
comparison.
Mahdipoor et al. have previously determined the absolute
heat of adsorption for MIL-53 (Fe3+) in 58.7 kJ/mol by experi-
mental methods.52Table I (second column) indicates that E blies
between −47.60 and −73.42 kJ/mol for this material, which gives
an overestimation of ∼25% for the most favorable configuration
(site 1). In this system, the final configuration shows a small angular
shift for a better (CO 2)O⋅ ⋅ ⋅H(MOF) interaction at ∼1.97 Å.
Such an interaction does not alter the O–H bond ( ∼0.98 Å) from the
hydroxyl groups or the C =O bond (1.18 Å), a typical behavior for
weak van der Waals interactions. Thus, one should not expect any
changes in the electronic structure of this system since there is no
orbital hybridization between O 2 p(CO 2) and H 1 sorbitals (-OH
group). Here, the comparison between experiment/calculation
methods is given with the absolute values for heat of
adsorption.
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FIG. 3. Initial configurations for CO 2adsorption inside the MOF structures under investigation: the interaction takes place vertically in 1, 2, and 5, whereas in 3 (in detail) and
4, the carbon dioxide molecule has been placed in a horizontal position. The red, gray, and white spheres correspond to oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen atoms, respectively,
whereas the golden sphere is representative of Fe, Al or Cu.
It is interesting to note that applying spin-polarization effects,
within the DFT/GGA theory level (third column), does not
improve the theory–experiment agreement, instead leading to an
even more significant overestimation in terms of absolute values(Eb=−189.58 to −245.43 kJ/mol). In order to investigate the under-
lying reasons for such a discrepancy, the atomic magnetic moment
(μ) at the metallic site has been evaluated for each case (see Table S2).
The supercell prior to adsorption has ∼1–3 unpaired electrons at the
TABLE I. Binding energies (E b) for several possible configurations upon carbon dioxide adsorption within the GGA level
without spin-polarized effects (second column, ISPIN =1), as well as with its inclusion (third column, ISPIN-2). GGA +U
values correspond to spin-polarized calculations with U =7 eV and J =1 eV on Fe 3 dor Cu 3 dstates. Note that the
comparison between the heat of adsorption and E b, which is based on the total energy variation prior and posterior to the
adsorption, is held using the absolute values. In the last column, the absolute values of heat of adsorption are taken from the
literature. The boldfaces denote the most favorable Eb for each case.
Binding energies (Eb, kJ/mol)
GGA GGA +UHeat of adsorption
Configuration ISPIN-1 ISPIN-2 ISPIN-2 (kJ/mol)
MIL-53 (Fe3 +)
1 −73.42 −242.04 −47.13 58.752
2 −69.57 −198.47 −38.19
3 −48.34 −189.58 −21.26
4 −47.60 −215.50 −29.11
5 −51.55 −245.43 −17.71
MIL-53 (Al3+)
1 −36.19 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅
2 −35.61 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅
3 −36.73 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ 35.018
4 −34.17 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅
5 −19.39 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅
MIL-53 (Cu2+)
1 −39.80 −42.87 −35.85
2 −28.34 −39.90 −32.19
3 −33.23 −46.97 −33.66 n/a.
4 −30.38 −47.36 −30.97
5 −29.71 −37.49 −34.18
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FIG. 4. Final configurations for CO 2
adsorption inside MIL-53 (Fe3+) after
ionic relaxation. In (a), the most favor-
able configuration at site 1 is shown,
whereas the other systems are rep-
resented in (b). Note: the position of
the hydrogen (from -OH groups) slightly
varies for each case. The red, gray, and
white spheres correspond to oxygen,
carbon, and hydrogen atoms, respec-
tively, whereas the golden sphere is rep-
resentative of Fe.
metallic center ( μ=1.0–2.7 μB), but the introduction of the guest
molecule promotes oscillations in the electron occupancy across the
framework for all sites. As a result, the total magnetization does not
remain constant in the series, even with multiple reoptimizations
being carried out after the convergence is reached. These data clearly
indicate the lack of consistency in the GGA level of theory to describe
the open shell configuration of these frameworks, i.e., to find the
correct minimum energy configuration in the potential energy
surface, since the gas capture does not involve the metallic center
in a direct way to justify the change in its electronic structure.
On the other hand, μremains constant upon addition of car-
bon dioxide within the GGA +U approximation as displayed in the
fourth column in Table S2. In this case, the use of Hubbard cor-
rections has returned E b=−47.13 kJ/mol, which has an agreement
of 80.3% with the experimental reported value.52The total magne-
tization determined for this material (mag =80.00 μB) establishes
a coherent high spin configuration with five unpaired electrons for
each Fe atom. Changes in the U parameter (U =6 and 8 eV) have
been tested for better tuning of E b, but no significant improvement
has been observed ( <1 kJ/mol) for site (1).
The absolute heat of adsorption measured by Bourrelly et al.18
(35 kJ/mol) is indicative of a much weaker gas–framework inter-
action in MIL-53 (Al3+) in comparison with the Fe-based MOF
(58.7 kJ/mol).52This property has been properly described by
our calculations, where the most favorable configuration (3) over-
estimates the experimental value by only 1.73 kJ/mol ( <5%,
Eb=−36.73 kJ/mol). For matters of comparison, Ramsahye et al.
have determined E b=−41 kJ/mol for MIL-53 (Al3+) within the
PW91 level of theory/double numerical basis set with polarizationfunctions applied on hydrogen atoms, using a different model for
MIL-53 (Al3+) that is based on its crystallographic data.17Thus, the
present study shows better agreement, and Fig. S2 (a) and (b) illus-
trate the final structures after ionic relaxation with the experimental
result than that found by previous works.17,27
The Cu-based MOF has site (1) as the most favorable config-
uration within the PBE level of theory, with E b=−39.80 kJ/mol in
the non-spin polarized case. The final geometry can be visualized in
Figs. S3(a) and S3(b), where the guest molecule is also rotated in rela-
tion to site (1) in a similar position to that verified for the Fe-based
MOF. Here, it is remarkable that the inclusion of spin-polarization
effects provides a smoother trend with E b=−37.49 to −47.36 kJ/mol
in comparison with the Fe-based MOF. This can be associated with
the lower number of unpaired electrons in the Cu-based MOF that
approximates the solution to the non-spin polarized case, but it still
provides a different chemical trend for this framework series.
In the GGA +U case, E b=−35.85 kJ/mol is 7.0 kJ/mol lower
than that predicted by the PBE method, suggesting a very simi-
lar heat of adsorption for this material in comparison with MIL-53
(Al3+). The final magnetization in the supercell (mag =32.00) is
coherent with the presence of one unpaired electron in each metallic
center (∼0.9μB/atom) and a slight magnetization on O atoms from
the metal–organic framework ( ∼0.1–0.3 μB). Hence, the presence of
an unpaired electron confirms the Cu d9electronic configuration
arising from the Cu2+oxidation state in these systems. Therefore,
this methodology is consistent to determine the electronic config-
uration for these materials prior and posterior to the adsorption,
thus providing total energies that can be compared with each other.
The method itself determines the correct magnetization in the first
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FIG. 5. The main H ⋅ ⋅ ⋅O interactions in
MIL-53 (X), where X =Fe3+, Al3+, or
Cu2+before the gas adsorption. The red,
gray, and white spheres correspond to
oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen atoms,
respectively, whereas the golden sphere
is representative of Fe, Al, or Cu. Level
of theory: PBE/non-spin polarized.
electronic convergence that remains constant in the further steps
until the ionic relaxation is finished. This is not verified for the PBE
method, where the magnetization tuning along with the ionic relax-
ation process could lead to different electronic structure descriptions
for some systems.
Albeit these frameworks have crystal structures that only dif-
fer by the metallic center, it is noticeable that the Fe-based MOF
has a binding energy (E b) for carbon dioxide capture that is much
higher than the other frameworks (see Table I). Such disparity is not
explained by the gas–framework interaction strength since the inter-
action distance remains unaltered (1.97–2.04 Å) regardless of the
material. Moreover, the van der Waals nature of these interactions
points out the inactivity of the metallic center in the gas adsorp-
tion. Thus, we should account for other weak interactions inside
the framework that could play a significant role in the adsorption
energetics. Subsection III D will address this point in detail.
D. Structural analysis: The non-spin polarized case
It has been discussed in Subsection III C that the inactivity of
the metallic center to affect the gas–framework interactions should
lead to more similar values for E b. In order to address this ques-
tion, the main gas–framework and framework–framework interac-
tions are investigated in this subsection. Figures 5 and 6 highlight
these interactions prior andposterior to the gas adsorption, respec-
tively, where O1–O3 correspond to oxygen atoms from the organic
counterpart. This analysis has been performed using the non-spin
polarized case for the same interaction site [site (1) for Fe has thesame final configuration as site (3) for Al and Cu] as the GGA +U
methodology has not been employed for structural relaxation of the
Al-based MOF. All relevant data are reported in Table II.
It is noticeable that the vertical distance between hydrogen
atoms from different inorganic counterparts d(H1 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅H2) increases
in the order Fe <Al<Cu as the H–O bond in the hydroxyl group
is bent toward the organic counterpart. Such geometrical distortion
is an overall effect of the electrostatic attraction between hydrogen
(H1) and the surrounding oxygen atoms connected to that
counterpart. In MIL-53 (Cu2+), the attraction is more evident due
to the shorter H1 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅O1 and H1 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅O2 distances (2.55 and 2.62 Å),
while the (O1 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅H1⋅ ⋅ ⋅O2) angle is about 26○higher than that in
the other MOFs. Nonetheless, these interactions are weakened upon
gas adsorption, as indicated by the stretching of H1 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅O1 and
H1⋅ ⋅ ⋅O2 distances to up to 2.98 Å (an increase of ∼0.4 Å) in MIL-
53 (Cu2+), which is a more significant variation than that observed
for the other frameworks. Furthermore, the decrease of 56.4○in
the a(O1 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅H1⋅ ⋅ ⋅O2) angle for this framework upon adsorption
indicates a weakened interaction between the gas and the organic
region.
Other interactions inside the framework after adsorption are
quite constant regardless of the metallic center. For instance,
d(H1 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅O4) and d(H2 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅O5) distances lie in the range 1.97–2.05 Å
for all systems, whereas the interaction between the oxygen
atom from the organic counterpart and the carbon atom, i.e.,
d(C1⋅ ⋅ ⋅O6), is about 2.81–2.90 Å. Thus, these interactions are not
dictating the differences seen in the gas adsorption energetics of
these frameworks.
FIG. 6. The main interactions after gas adsorption at site (1) inside the MIL-53 (Fe3+). Note that the interactions may vary according to each system. The red, gray, and white
spheres correspond to oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen atoms, respectively, whereas the golden sphere is representative of Fe, Al, and Cu. Level of theory: PBE/non-spin
polarized.
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TABLE II. Structural parameters given by atomic distances ( d, in Å) and angle ( a, in○) of the main contributions to the gas adsorption energetics in MIL-53 (X), with X =Fe3+,
Al3+, or Cu2+. In the second column, the oxygen atoms (O1–O6) are located either at the organic counterpart (organic) or the gas molecule (CO 2). Level of theory: PBE/non-spin
polarized.
MIL-53 (Fe3+) MIL-53 (Al3+) MIL-53 (Cu2+)
Atomic distance (Å)/Angle(○) Oxygen Initial +CO 2 Δd Initial +CO 2 Δd Initial +CO 2 Δd
d(O1 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅H1) Organic 2.87 2.82 −0.05 2.90 2.85 −0.05 2.55 2.69 0.14
d(O2 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅H1) Organic 2.64 2.64 0.00 2.71 2.69 −0.02 2.62 2.98 0.36
d(O3 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅H1) Organic 2.71 2.95 0.14 2.68 2.89 0.21 3.12 2.97 −0.15
d(H1 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅H2) ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ 5.16 5.44 0.28 5.22 5.39 0.17 5.50 5.76 0.26
d(X–X) ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ 7.50 8.46 1.16 7.52 8.42 0.90 7.52 8.47 0.95
d(H1 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅O4) CO 2 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ 1.97 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ 1.98 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ 2.04 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅
d(H2 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅O5) CO 2 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ 1.97 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ 1.98 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ 2.05 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅
d(C1⋅ ⋅ ⋅O6) ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ 2.88 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ 2.90 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ 2.81 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅
a(O1⋅ ⋅ ⋅H1⋅ ⋅ ⋅O2) Organic 114.6 115.1 0.5 112.0 113.2 1.2 138.9 82.5 −56.4
Eb(kJ/mol) −73.42 −36.73 −39.18
The process of gas accommodation inside the framework pore
promotes an increase in the distance between metallic centers in
about d(X–X) =0.9–1.2 Å. As this distance is decreased in the adja-
cent unit cells by ∼0.5 Å, it is suggested that the presence of the
guest molecule slightly opens the pore, whereas the flexibility of
this model is clarified. Thus, the wider space opened between dif-
ferent inorganic regions in MIL-53 (Cu2+) could slightly decrease
the interaction strength with the guest molecule, i.e., the adsorp-
tion enthalpy or heat of adsorption, as the hydrogen atoms are the
main sites contributing to the adsorption. However, the constant
gas–framework interactions suggest that internal interactions inside
the framework involving the hydroxyl group and organic counter-
part have significant contributions to the binding energy of these
materials.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
In the current study, we have investigated the effect of vary-
ing the metallic center in the inorganic counterpart of MIL-53
(X), where X =Fe3+, Al3+, Cu2+, on the carbon dioxide adsorp-
tion by using first-principles methods. The relevance of applying
spin-polarization and Hubbard corrections (GGA +U method) to
describe the electronic structure and gas adsorption energetics has
been investigated. The Hubbard parameters for Cu- and Fe-based
MOFs have been initially estimated through electronic structure
assessment, in which the values of U =7 eV and J =1 eV are found
to be appropriate to treat the Fe dand Cu dstates. Within this
theory level, MIL-53 (Cu2+) has a calculated bandgap of 0.83 eV,
whereas MIL-53 (Fe3+) and MIL-53 (Al3+) display bandgaps of
2.20 and 3.23 eV, respectively, in fair agreement with experimental
reports.
In fact, the proper description of the metal orbital occupancy in
the open shell systems is achieved using the spin-polarized GGA +U
calculations. The atomic magnetic moment on the metallic center
is, in this context, an important parameter to be tracked throughout
the adsorption process, as it should remain constant prior andpos-
terior to the adsorption. Here, MIL-53(Fe3+) is found to stabilize on
the high-spin configuration with five unpaired electrons per atomand with a CO 2binding energy of −47.13 kJ/mol in good agreement
with the experimental finding for heat of adsorption. It should be
pointed out that our thermodynamics assessment includes only the
total energy contribution for the reaction enthalpy, i.e., temperature-
dependent contributions to the internal energy, zero-point energy,
and pV term are not included. Therefore, the agreement with the
experimental outcome could be further improved if such contri-
butions are included and specific thermodynamics conditions are
properly simulated. However, it lays beyond the scope of the cur-
rent study. In the case of the Cu-based MOF, we have obtained
a CO 2binding energy of −35.85 kJ/mol. The latter is similar to
the one obtained for the Al-based MOF, viz., −36.73 kJ/mol. These
results indicate that Cu-based MIL-53 is a promising framework for
CO 2capture applications. Concerning the structure, the CO 2guest
molecule is stabilized within the MOF pore center through weak
interactions with the hydroxyl groups of the inorganic counterpart,
which shows the relevance of the coordinating molecule on the metal
site. These results provide insights for future design of suitable MOF
compounds for CO 2capture and storage.
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL
See the supplementary material for density of states obtained
for the metal–organic frameworks under investigation using the
tetrahedron method with Blöchl corrections and final configura-
tion for gas adsorption inside MIL-53(Al3+) and MIL-53(Cu2+) after
ionic relaxation. The supplementary material is available free of
charge on the ACS Publications website.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research project received financial support from the
Swedish Research Council (VR) and STandUP for Energy collab-
oration, with computational resources provided by the Swedish
National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC) at the PDC Cen-
ter for High Performance Computing and National Supercom-
puter Centre (NSC). G.B.D. acknowledges CAPES (Coordenação
de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Ensino Superior) for financial
J. Chem. Phys. 155, 024701 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0054874 155, 024701-9
© Author(s) 2021The Journal
of Chemical PhysicsARTICLE scitation.org/journal/jcp
support of her Ph.D. studies. L.T.C. acknowledges support from
CAPES/Print/UFF Grant No. 8881.310460/2018-01 and CAPES-
STINT Grant No. 88887.465528/2019-00 and the CNPq Fellowship.
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
DATA AVAILABILITY
The data that support the findings of this study are available
within the article.
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Engineering the spin conversion in graphene
monolayer epitaxial structures
Cite as: APL Mater. 9, 061113 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0048612
Submitted: 24 February 2021 •Accepted: 3 June 2021 •
Published Online: 23 June 2021
Alberto Anadón,1,a)
Adrián Gudín,1
Rubén Guerrero,1Iciar Arnay,1Alejandra Guedeja-Marron,1,2
Pilar Jiménez-Cavero,3,4
Jose Manuel Díez Toledano,1,5Fernando Ajejas,1,b)María Varela,6
Sebastien Petit-Watelot,7
Irene Lucas,3,4Luis Morellón,3,4
Pedro Antonio Algarabel,3,4
Manuel Ricardo Ibarra,3,4,8
Rodolfo Miranda,1,5,9Julio Camarero,1,5,9Juan Carlos Rojas-Sánchez,7
and Paolo Perna1,c)
AFFILIATIONS
1IMDEA Nanociencia, C/Faraday 9, 28049 Madrid, Spain
2Departamento de Física de Materiales and Instituto Pluridisciplinar, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria,
28040 Madrid, Spain
3Instituto de Nanociencia y Materiales de Aragón, Universidad de Zaragoza and Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas,
50018 Zaragoza, Spain
4Departamento de Física de la Materia Condensada, Universidad de Zaragoza, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain
5Departamento de Física de la Materia Condensada and Departamento de Física Aplicada and Instituto Nicolás Cabrera,
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain
6Departamento de Física de Materiales and Instituto Pluridisciplinar, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain
7Université de Lorraine, CNRS, IJL, Nancy, France
8Laboratorio de Microscopías Avanzadas, Universidad de Zaragoza, 50018 Zaragoza, Spain
9IFIMAC, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain
Note: This paper is part of the Special Topic on Emerging Materials for Spin–Charge Interconversion.
a)Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: alberto.anadon@univ-lorraine.fr
b)Current address: Unité Mixte de Physique, CNRS, Thales, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, Palaiseau, France.
c)Electronic mail: paolo.perna@imdea.org
ABSTRACT
Spin Hall and Rashba–Edelstein effects, which are spin-to-charge conversion phenomena due to spin–orbit coupling (SOC), are attracting
increasing interest as pathways to manage rapidly and at low consumption cost the storage and processing of a large amount of data in
spintronic devices as well as more efficient energy harvesting by spin-caloritronics devices. Materials with large SOC, such as heavy metals
(HMs), are traditionally employed to get large spin-to-charge conversion. More recently, the use of graphene (gr) in proximity with large
SOC layers has been proposed as an efficient and tunable spin transport channel. Here, we explore the role of a graphene monolayer between
Co and a HM and its interfacial spin transport properties by means of thermo-spin measurements. The gr/HM (Pt and Ta) stacks have been
prepared on epitaxial Ir(111)/Co(111) structures grown on sapphire crystals, in which the spin detector (i.e., top HM) and the spin injector
(i.e., Co) are all grown in situ under controlled conditions and present clean and sharp interfaces. We find that a gr monolayer retains the spin
current injected into the HM from the bottom Co layer. This has been observed by detecting a net reduction in the sum of the spin Seebeck
and interfacial contributions due to the presence of gr and independent from the spin Hall angle sign of the HM used.
©2021 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0048612
APL Mater. 9, 061113 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0048612 9, 061113-1
© Author(s) 2021APL Materials ARTICLE scitation.org/journal/apm
Spin–charge current interconversion based on spin–orbit cou-
pling is an essential operation in present spintronics applications.1–6
Systems showing these properties are promising candidates for the
realization, for instance, of a new generation of nonvolatile magnetic
random access memories or efficient energy harvesting devices,7–9
among other examples. The most widespread systems providing
large spin Hall conversion efficiency toward these applications are
based on heavy metals, e.g., Pt, Ta, or W, because of their strong
spin–orbit coupling (SOC).
Recently, two-dimensional (2D) materials, such as Rashba
interfaces,10,11topological insulator surfaces,12–14and transition
metal dichalcogenides,15–24have been proposed to obtain efficient
spin–charge current interconversion25and their wide range of func-
tional properties. Some can present large SOC,15,17,19,26while oth-
ers such as gr can exhibit micrometer spin diffusion lengths and
long spin lifetimes.27In addition, the properties of gr can be tuned
by proximity with other materials, such as ferromagnets (FMs),28,29
heavy metals,30or even other 2D materials.17
In this regard, it has been observed recently that the gr/Pt inter-
face presents a very high spin-to-charge output voltage at room
temperature (RT) in lateral spin valve devices using exfoliated gr
and electrodes grown ex situ by electron beam lithography.31,32The
enhanced spin–charge signal was due to the combination of current
shunting suppression, highly resistive platinum, and efficient spin
injection into gr. However, in contrast, it has also been observed
that gr can significantly reduce the spin pumping voltage33,34or even
generate a spin pumping voltage by itself without the necessity of
a HM due to interfacial spin–orbit interactions.35,36These discre-
pancies, together with the low intrinsic SOC of gr, point toward the
relevance of the quality of the interfaces in determining the overall
spin transport properties.
Here, we study the interface between the gr monolayer and
a HM and its effect on spin-to-charge current conversion in epi-
taxial systems in which the spin detector (i.e., top HM), the gr
layer, and the spin injector (i.e., Co) are all grown in situ under
controlled conditions and with clean and sharp interfaces. All the
samples have an (111)Ir 10 nm buffer layer and a 1.6 nm-thick Co
layer on top of it. Then, we have two different types of stacks on
top of the Ir/Co: gr/HM and HM. The role of gr in determining
the overall spin-to-charge current conversion has been disentan-
gled by means of thermo-spin experiments, as shown in Fig. 1. In
these experiments, which are done in the so-called longitudinal spin
Seebeck effect (SSE) configuration,8,37the SSE and the anomalous
Nernst effect (ANE)38coexist in this geometry. In order to sepa-
rate both contributions, we first use an Ir/Co/Ir control sample to
obtain the ANE in the Co layer. We subtract this contribution in all
the other heterostructures in order to obtain the overall spin–charge
current contribution. We demonstrate that the spin–charge conver-
sion in a Co/gr/HM system is not enhanced compared to the refer-
ence Co/HM and independent from the spin Hall angle sign of the
HM used as spin detectors, i.e., Pt or Ta. This experimental find-
ing highlights the importance of gr to engineer the spin conversion
and for the development of spin-caloritronics and spin-orbitronics
devices.
The samples incorporating gr (i.e., gr/HM) and the ones
without gr (i.e., HM) were all fabricated in situ on epitaxial
Ir(111)/Co(111) grown on sapphire crystals under controlled
conditions, that is, they present similar structural quality and clean
FIG. 1. Schematic of thermo-spin measurements in graphene metal hybrid het-
erostructures. When a thermal gradient is applied in an Ir/Co/Pt structure in the z
direction as well as a magnetic field in the y direction, a spin current ( Js) is gener-
ated in the z direction and we will observe two different thermo-spin contributions,
the anomalous Nernst effect ( EANE) and the spin Seebeck effect ( ESSE). When a
graphene monolayer is introduced, we will need to consider not only the effect of
graphene itself but also the additional contributions of the two new interfaces in
the system ( Egr), which may induce the inverse Rashba–Edelstein effect as well
as spin memory loss, a partial loss of spin current coherence.
interfaces. We followed the methodology described in Refs. 28 and
39. In brief, we first deposited a 10 nm-thick epitaxial Ir(111) on
Al2O3(0001) single crystal substrates by DC sputtering at 670 K with
a partial Ar pressure of 8 ⋅10−3mbar and low deposition rate (of
0.3 Å/s). Subsequently, in the case of the gr-based heterostructures,
the monolayer gr was prepared by chemical vapor deposition by
ethylene dissociation at 1025 K at a partial pressure of 5.5 ⋅10−6
mbar. The samples were then cooled down to RT and Co was
deposited by molecular beam epitaxy, and then, the Co intercalation
below gr was promoted by thermal annealing at 550 K. This proce-
dure produces the formation of a homogeneous Co layer with high
structural order and sharp interfaces.28,39The Co layer is monitored
in every step of the growth by x-ray photoemission spectroscopy to
assure that it is not oxidized. In the case of samples without gr, we
deposited a 1.6 nm-thick Co layer by DC sputtering at RT on top of
the Ir(111) buffer. Finally, in all samples, a 5 nm capping layer of Pt
or Ta was DC sputtered at RT.
To prove the structural quality of the samples, we resorted
to x-ray diffraction (XRD) and high resolution scanning transmis-
sion electron measurements (STEMs) at RT. The XRD measure-
ments were performed using a commercial Rigaku SmartLab SE
multipurpose diffractometer with a monochromatic Cu K αsource
(λ=1.54 Å). STEM observations were carried out in a JEOL
ARM200cF at 200 kV and RT. The microscope is equipped with a
CEOS spherical aberration corrector and a Gatan Quantum electron
energy-loss spectrometer.28Specimens were prepared by mechanical
polishing and Ar ion milling.
Figure 2(a) shows a θ–2θdiffraction pattern recorded in
a Al 2O3//Ir/Co/gr/Ta heterostructure. Besides the Al 2O3[0006]
and Al 2O3[00012] crystallographic reflections from the substrate,
maximum intensity appears at 2 θ=40.6○and 87.9○, which corre-
sponds with Ir[111] and Ir[222] reflections, respectively. The forma-
tion of thickness fringes around the Ir[111] and Ir[222] reflections
confirms the low roughness of the interfaces. In the inset, the ωscan
(rocking curve) around the Ir[222] reflection shows a sharp pro-
file. The curve was fitted using a pseudo-voigt function obtaining
a full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 0.27○, which proves a low
degree of mosaicity in the deposited films. Figure 2(b) shows φscans
APL Mater. 9, 061113 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0048612 9, 061113-2
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FIG. 2. Structural and microscopic char-
acterization of epitaxial Ir/Co/gr/HM het-
erostructures. (a) X-ray θ–2θdiffraction
pattern recorded in an Al 2O3//Ir/Co/gr
heterostructure. In the inset, a θ–2θ
scan recorded around the Ir(111) reflec-
tion is shown. (b) φscan plots of the
Al2O3[20–210] and Ir[002] reflections.
(c) and (d) Scanning transmission elec-
tron microscopy characterization of a
Ir[111]/Co/gr sample grown on a SrTiO 3
substrate (with tCo=1 nm and tIr
=10 nm), capped with a Ta oxide thick
layer in order to protect the gr sur-
face. Atomic resolution high-angle annu-
lar dark-field images of the STO/Ir and
Ir/Co interfaces, respectively. The scale
bars represent a length of 2 nm.
around the Al 2O3[202⋅110]and Ir[002] reflections. The rotation
scan around the Ir[002] reflection shows a sixfold symmetry instead
of the expected threefold symmetry. This is related with the presence
of two equivalent twin-boundary domains rotated by 180○.40Similar
curves, including ω- andφ-scans, are obtained for samples with-
out gr (not shown). From Figs. 2(a) and 2(b), the following epi-
taxial relations are obtained: out-of-plane [0001]Al2O3∣∣[111]Ir and
two in-plane configurations, (1) [01–10]Al2O3∣∣[1–10]Ir (−90○and
30○) and (2) [01–10]Al2O3∣∣[1–10]Ir (30○and 90○). The positions
of the Ir[111] and Ir[002] reflections indicate an incommensurate
growth of iridium with a bulk-like afcc lattice parameter within the
experimental error. This is explained by the large mismatch ( ∼13%)
between Al 2O3[0001] (0.4785 nm) and Ir[111].
The STEM observations confirm the quality of the stacks.
Figures 2(c) and 2(d) display the atomic resolution STEM high-
angle dark-field image of an Ir/Co/gr/Ta heterostructure, showing a
high crystalline quality and sharp and coherent interface. No major
hints of chemical interdiffusion or disorder are visible. These results,
along with x-ray diffraction, suggest that the Co layer is epitaxial and
the Co layer on the Ir buffer is fully strained and coherent.
Thermo-spin measurements were performed in an Oxford
spectrostat NMR40 continuous flow He cryostat with a thermoelec-
tric measurement system.41–43Experimentally, the sample is put in
place between two ceramic AlN plates, which are electrically insu-
lating but have high thermal conductivity. They are attached using
thermal paste to a large Cu piece that acts as a cold feet and is
in direct contact with the cryostat. A resistive heater on the upper
AlN piece provides the thermal gradient by application of an elec-
tric current in the order of several milliamperes. The temperature
difference between the upper and lower plate is measured by two
T-type thermocouples near to the sample in order to obtain accu-
rate temperature values. The samples were contacted electrically
with thin Al wires with a diameter of 25 μm using commercial
thermal silver paste. The voltage was measured using a Keithley2182A nanovoltmeter. The sketch of the measurement geometry is
shown in Fig. 1: the thermal gradient is applied in the z direction,
while a magnetic field is swept in the y direction. A thermo-spin
voltage is then measured in the x direction.
It is worth recalling that in systems containing metallic FMs, the
thermo-spin voltage has three main contributions: (1) the anoma-
lous Nernst effect (ANE), i.e., the thermal counterpart of the anoma-
lous Hall effect, which has a similar physical origin;8,38,43(2) the
spin Seebeck effect, which comprises the generation of a spin cur-
rent from incoherent thermal excitation and its conversion on an
electric voltage by means of the inverse spin Hall effect (ISHE); and
(3) the interfacial spin–orbit contribution, arising from the Rashba
interfacial spin–orbit field, which can give rise to a wide range of
phenomena, from spin memory loss to spin current generation.6,10,44
We first identified the ANE signal contribution of the Co layer,
which is proportional to the Co magnetization. We acquired the
thermo-spin voltage in a symmetric epitaxial Ir(10)/Co(1.6)/Ir(5)
stack [panel (b)] as a function of the in-plane applied magnetic field
and compared it to the sample magnetization along the y direc-
tion normalized by the saturation value. The identical behavior of
both magnitudes is shown in Fig. 3(b), as expected from the ANE
phenomenological relation
EANE=QS(μ0M×∇T), (1)
with QS,μ0,M, and∇T being the Nernst coefficient, the vacuum
magnetic permeability, the thermal gradient, and the magnetization
of the FM, respectively.
Since Ir has a much smaller spin Hall than other heavy metals,
such as Pt,45this symmetric stack can be hence used as a reference to
check the size of the anomalous Nernst effect of the Co layer in the
asymmetric stacks, which will be subtracted from the overall voltage
measured. Note that in Figs. 3(a) and 3(b), we can observe a very
APL Mater. 9, 061113 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0048612 9, 061113-3
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FIG. 3. Thermo-spin voltage in epitaxial hybrid gr/HM and HM stacks. (a) Thermo-
spin voltage in Ir/Co/Ir, Ir/Co/Pt, and Ir/Co/gr/Pt. The observed thermo-spin voltage
in the sample with the Ir capping layer (yellow) is significantly smaller than the that
with Pt, and it is mainly due to the anomalous Nernst effect in Co. A reduction
in the voltage at saturation field is observed when gr is introduced into the stack.
(b) Close-up view on the anomalous Nerst effect voltage in the Ir/Co/Ir sample
and its magnetization measured by vibrating sample magnetometry. (c) Angular
dependence on the thermo-spin voltage in the Ir/Co/Pt sample. The angle θrep-
resents the relative angle between the measured voltage (x direction) and the
applied magnetic field (xy plane).
small voltage in the Co/Ir sample mainly due to the electrical screen-
ing by the buffer layer of Ir because of its low resistivity, about three
times lower than Pt in this range of thickness.46–48This is specially
the case for epitaxial Ir,49which leads to smaller values of the spin
Hall angle when comparing to polycrystalline metals (see Ref. 48).
The second contribution to the measured voltage is the SSE
generated by the inverse spin Hall effect,50,51which has a similar geo-
metric behavior, since the spin current lies in the z direction as it is
induced by an out-of-plane thermal gradient,
JC=θSHρ
A(2e
̵h)JS×σ, (2)
where JCandJsare the charge and spin currents in the HM, respec-
tively,θSHandρare the spin Hall angle and the electrical resistivity
of the HM, respectively, Arepresents the contact area between the
FM and the HM, eis the elementary charge, and σis the mean spin
polarization direction of the electrons in the FM close to the interface
with the HM. It is important to note here that JS∝∇Tandσ∝M
in the FM at saturation.
We have thus performed thermo-spin measurements in the Pt
and gr/Pt samples. This is shown in Fig. 3(a) where we observe
that the introduction of gr reduces the total observed thermo-spin
voltage in the Ir/Co/Pt system by about 40%.
As can be seen in Eqs. (1) and (2), the SSE and ANE voltages
follow a cross product relation between the thermal gradient and the
magnetization; therefore, when magnetization rotates in the xy plane
and the x component of the thermo-spin electric field is measured,
we will observe a sinusoidal relation, as shown in Fig. 3(c), where the
angleθrepresents the relative angle between the measured voltage
and the applied magnetic field.
At this point, it is important to notice that (i) the dependence
of the thermo-spin voltage with an external magnetic field is simi-
lar for both effects and (ii) the comparison of thermal gradients in
Co in these stacks is reliable. For the latter, we routinely checked
that the total thermal conductivity of the system, i.e., the sample(mainly substrate) with its holder, is maintained unchanged in all
experiments and all samples. In fact, the main contributions to the
thermal resistance of the system come from the substrate and sample
holder because their total thermal resistance is orders of magnitude
larger than that of the thin film stack. Consequently, the heat current
that flows through Co, which has the same thickness in all samples,
is similar in all the cases. This implies that the inclusion of gr or dif-
ferent metallic detecting layers does not modify the (perpendicular)
thermal gradient in Co and that the corresponding spin current is
kept reasonably unchanged for all samples.
As remarked before, the ANE signal of the Co layer taken from
the measurements of the symmetric Ir/Co/Ir system is subtracted
from the voltages acquired in the asymmetric stacks with the Pt
detecting layer with and without gr. We carefully considered the
resistivities and thickness of the films in the system. This is shown in
the supplementary material. Thus, the ANE (Vcontr
ANE) contribution to
the voltage in the xdirection for a multilayer system can be estimated
for each sample as42,51
Vcontr
ANE=(r
1+r)VANE, (3)
where VANEis the anomalous Nernst effect voltage of a single metal-
lic FM layer with the same thickness subjected to the same thermal
gradient and r=ρHM
ρFMtFM
tHM, withρHMandρFMrepresenting the HM
and Co resistivities and tHMand tFMrepresenting their thickness,
respectively.
The resulting voltage dependences on the applied magnetic
field after subtraction of the ANE contribution are shown in Fig. 4.
Here, the voltage signals are normalized by the sample resistance to
rule out the possibility of a shunting effect in the gr monolayer in
the inverse spin Hall signal. We also assume for this calculation that
FIG. 4. Interfacial contribution to the thermo-spin voltage. (a) Thermo-spin volt-
age after subtraction of the anomalous Nernst effect component. This value is
divided by the sample resistance in order to reduce artifacts and compare the val-
ues adequately. L x=0.8 mm represents the lateral dimension of the sample in
the x direction and ∇T=(Thot−Tcold)/Lz, where Lz=0.4 mm is the sample
thickness, including the substrate. The absolute saturation voltage observed in the
Pt sample (blue open circles) is reduced by 60% when comparing with the gr/Pt
sample (green triangles). This is also the case for the absolute voltage in the Ta
sample (wine squares) compared to gr/Ta (red filled circles) where the observed
reduction is 11%.
APL Mater. 9, 061113 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0048612 9, 061113-4
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Ms is the same in all the samples. To break down the contribution
of the gr monolayer, in addition to the gr/Pt- and Pt-based stacks,
we have considered a second set of samples capped by a 5 nm-thick
Ta layer with a naturally oxidized surface (i.e., gr/Ta- and Ta-based
stacks). As clearly shown in Fig. 4, the voltage dependence with the
external magnetic field has an opposite sign when comparing Ta and
Pt samples, as expected from their different signs of the spin Hall
angle. Although the signal reductions in the two types of samples are
of different magnitudes, that is, 60% in Pt-based samples and 11%
in the Ta-based samples, our experimental finding suggests a uni-
versal behavior regardless of the detecting layer. Here, the reduction
percentage is calculated by subtracting the voltage at μ0H=0.7 T as
∣(VHM−Vgr/HM)/Vgr/HM⋅100∣.
There are different mechanisms that may be behind the ori-
gin of this observation. In this experiment, gr may support a non-
negligible SOC, induced by the adjacent metals through electronic
hybridization. This, in turn, produces a significant Rashba-type
Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction (DMI).28,29,40On this basis, we
envisage three different mechanisms responsible for the reduction of
the measured thermo-spin signals. (i) The introduction of gr could
produce a shunting of the ISHE current, reducing the effective spin-
to-charge conversion in the HM. This artifact is avoided normalizing
the thermo-spin voltages by the sample resistance, as shown in Fig. 4.
(ii) A Rashba interface, such as the Co/gr in our system, can induce
spin–charge conversion by the so-called inverse Rashba–Edelstein
effect (IREE). This would be translated in a voltage contribution of
similar sign and magnitude for both systems. As we observe, this sce-
nario cannot explain our findings unless the hybridization of gr due
to the HM changes substantially the effective IREE of the interface.
The IREE has already been observed in YIG/gr by spin pumping,35,36
and after normalization by sample resistance, its magnitude is signif-
icantly smaller than the ISHE in Pt, although it could be different in
the case of Co/gr. (iii) The gr interfaces are characterized by the pres-
ence of an interfacial spin–orbit coupling field that can affect the spin
coherence,6,46,52–54depolarizing the spin current traveling across it
and thus reducing the total observed signal. This effect, referred to as
spin memory loss (SML), may happen in both Co/gr28and gr/HM46
interfaces. The fact that the reduction is smaller in the case of Ta
could be explained by its smaller SML when compared to Pt inter-
faces.6,55Another plausible scenario could also arise considering a
combination of the IREE effect and SML. In summary, we may have
a different enhancement or attenuation depending on the nature of
the HM. In addition, even though saturation magnetization can play
an important role in ANE measurements,42,56this interpretation still
holds even if the value of the saturation magnetization (Ms) is sig-
nificantly different in both systems. As shown in the supplementary
material, we obtain a higher average Ms in the gr samples, sug-
gesting that the thermo-spin voltage suppression by graphene could
be even larger than the estimation that we provide in Fig. 4. Fur-
ther experiments including the direct injection of spin current are
necessary in order to discern between both contributions since while
spin Hall and inverse spin Hall are reciprocal effects, this is not
necessarily the case of the Rashba–Edelstein effect and its inverse
counterpart.
Summarizing, we have fabricated high quality epitaxial hybrid
metallic/monolayer graphene stacks with coherent, roughness-free
interfaces as confirmed by x-ray diffraction and atomically resolved
scanning transmission electron microscopy experiments. We haveexplored the spin–charge conversion by means of thermo-spin mea-
surements in which we have carefully disentangled the anoma-
lous Nernst effect from the spin Seebeck and interfacial contribu-
tions. Furthermore, we estimated the interfacial contribution when
a graphene monolayer is inserted. Although in other experiments
the gr/Pt system has been shown to increase the spin Hall effect
efficiency, we demonstrate that, for thermally induced spin cur-
rents in the longitudinal spin Seebeck configuration, the presence
of graphene reduces the overall spin–charge conversion regardless
of the heavy metal (Ta or Pt with different spin Hall angle signs)
layer used. We disregard any possible effect of the introduction of
graphene in the thermal gradient in Co due to the insignificant
change that the thermal resistance of graphene introduces in the
system compared to the total thermal resistance of the sample and
sample holder. We ascribe the reduction in the thermo-spin volt-
age mainly to the combination of spin memory loss and the inverse
Rashba–Edelstein effect.
See the supplementary material for more information on the
anomalous Nernst effect contribution in thermo-spin measurements
and the saturation magnetization in ultra-thin cobalt films.
We thank V. P. Amin, S. Sangiao, A. Fert, and F.
Casanova for valuable discussions. This research was supported
by the Regional Government of Madrid through Project No.
P2018/NMT-4321 (NANOMAGCOST-CM) and the Spanish Minis-
try of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) through Project
Nos. RTI2018-097895-B-C42, RTI2018-097895-B-C43 (FUN-SOC),
PGC2018-098613-B-C21 (SpOrQuMat), PGC2018-098265-B-C31,
and PCI2019-111867-2 (FLAG ERA 3 grant SOgraphMEM).
J.M.D.T. and A.G. acknowledge support from MINECO and CM
through Grant Nos. BES-2017-080617 and PEJD-2017-PREIND-
4690, respectively. I.A. acknowledges financial support from the
Regional Government of Madrid through Contract No. PEJD-
2019-POST/IND-15343. IMDEA Nanoscience is supported by the
“Severo Ochoa” Program for Centres of Excellence in R & D,
MINECO (Grant No. SEV-2016-0686). A.A., S.P.-W., and J.-C.R.-S.
acknowledge support from Toptronic ANR through Project No.
ANR-19-CE24-0016-01. P.J.-C., I.L., L.M., P.A.A., and M.R.I.
acknowledge support from Project No. MAT2017-82970-C2-R.
Electron microscopy observations were carried out at the Cen-
tro Nacional de Microscopía Electrónica at the Universidad Com-
plutense de Madrid.
DATA AVAILABILITY
The data that support the findings of this study are available
from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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© Author(s) 2021 |
5.0057392.pdf | Characteristics of Thin Film Organic Photovoltaic Solar
Cells
Jagriti Dewan1Dand Mani Kant Yadav2E
1Pt. J.L.N. Government College, Faridabad ,QGLD
2J.C. Bose University of Science and Technology, Faridabad ,QGLD
Djagritidewan22@gmail.com
E&RUUHVSRQGLQJDXWKRU yadavmanikant64@gmail.com
Abstract. The field of Organic Photovoltaics is gaining widespread popularity owing to the cost-effectiveness,
efficiency, and stability of Thin Film Organic Photovoltaic Solar cells (OSC’s) for application especially in the
relevance of the needs of the poor and remote areas of our vast country. Thin Film OSC aims at reducing the thickness of the active layer too few nanometres. This can help in enhancing the light- trapping ability of the OSC’s
and thereby reducing the number of optical losses. A major proble m in OSC’s is the poor mobility and
recombination of photogenerated charge carriers. The key role is to create appropriate designs of the device architecture with feeble losses. This paper aims at the device and material study of the OSC’s which could enha ncethe
Power Conversion Efficiency (PCE) of the Thin Film OSC’s. This research area is in tune with the present International R&D trends to develop flexible and cost-effective solar cells
Keywords —Organic Solar cells, Photovoltaics, Thin film, Power Conversion Efficiency, nanometer, recombination.
INTRODUCTION
Organic Photovoltaic Solar cells have gained widespread popularity over the years. Recent researches have
shown a marked improvement in the Power Conversion Efficiency (PCE) which has made this an extremely
popular R&D activity in the Solar cells field. The Solar Cell which was developed at Bell Laboratories in 1954
is a type of Photovoltaic device that converts optical en ergy to electrical energy[1]. Though it seems to be an
extremely simple concept, successful Photovoltaic (PV) devices for solar energy production will require the
optimization of many crucial factors involving material electron donor properties, electrode configuration,
substrate mechanics, light trapping schemes, and fabrication methods. This paper covers a study of varioustechniques of material development an d light trapping methodologies to develop efficient OSC’s.
Thin-Film Organic Solar Cells
Silicon (Si) based solar cell s are designed primarily owing to its non-toxic nature and availability. Si however
has an indirect bandgap. This leads to high optical lo sses due to reflection and hence the light absorption
capacity is poor. To meet the requirement of light-harvest ing, the thickness of the Si active layer should be no
less than 100 μm. The thickness of silicon solar cells is accompanied by efficient crystallization and purification
methods which makes Si-based solar cells expensive. To solve these problems, pr oper device architecture and
light trapping methods such as periodic gratings, photon ic crystals, plasmonic structures Si nanowire arrays
(SiNWs), and Si nanocone arrays(SiNCs) have been proposed and investigated widely.Though efficiencies of these thin-film organic devices have not reached their inorganic counterpart’s dynamic
methodologies will help achieve an optimum PCE. The field of OPV began with the use of small organic
Advanced Materials and Radiation Physics (AMRP-2020)
AIP Conf. Proc. 2352, 020040-1–020040-4; https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0057392
Published by AIP Publishing. 978-0-7354-4105-7/$30.00020040-1molecules (pigments) and further developed with semico nducting polymers. Also, a variety of small-molecular-
weight electron-acceptor materials are available easily . A major advantage of these small-molecule materials
compared with large-molecule polymers is that vacuum sublimation can be used to form well-controlled
amorphous or polycrystalline thin films on flexible polymeric substrates. As a result, they can be used to fabricate complex multilayer devices, and there is no need to make the molec ules soluble. Moreover, they also
are very easy to purify [2].
Preparation Techniques
The most common among various techniques employed ar e the dry thermal evaporation of organic constituents.
For small molecules, evaporation is the best choice. Therm al evaporation involves high vacuum conditions. In
addition to it, contaminants such as oxygen and water are eliminated. The mean free path of the molecules in
such an ultra-vacuum condition is greatly enhanced as co mpared to the distance from the evaporating source to
the sample. This method allows good thickness and dopant control, eliminates parasitic coating on the walls of the chamber, and allows the fabrication of complex multilayer devices [3].
In addition to it, there are numerous techniques one of wh ich is Spincoating. This technique has indisputably the
most important for the development of solar cells. In spite of the complexity of film formation, it helps in
producing a homogenous film over a large area. The typi cal form of spin coating involves the application of a
liquid to a substrate followed by an acceleration of the substrate to a chosen rotational speed [4]. The
acceleration results in the ejection of most of the liquid an d what is left is a thin film of liquid on the substrate.
The film thickness d obtained can be expressed as [4]
d = k ὠª
where ὠis the angular speed and k and a are constants related to the properties of the liquid (solvent), solute,
and substrate.
Formation of (xcitons
Inorganic solids, the intermolecular overlap of electron ic wavefunctions is very weak which results in making
the energy bands very narrow, and thus they can be ap proximated as molecular orbitals [5]. This results in the
formation of two energy levels termed as Highest Occu pied Molecular orbital (HOM O) which is analogous to
the valence band and Lowest unoccupied Molecular Orbital (LUMO) which is analogous to the conduction band in the case of inorganic materials. The energy bandga p is the difference betwee n the two energy levels.
When the solar radiation is incident on the thin fi lm OSC’s absorption of energy greater than or e qual to the
bandgap results in the formation of an excited electron (e) in the LUMO and a corresponding hole (h) in the
HOMO. Due to the attractive Coulomb potential, the excite d electron and hole get drawn closer towards each
other and become bound in a hydrogenic electronic state called an exciton. An exciton is neutral in charge and is
capable of moving throughout the material. The formatio n of excitons is unfavorable in OSCs because one
needs to generate free electrons and holes to be co llected at the opposite electrodes to generate current. For the
successful operation of an OSC, the excitons must be diss ociated into free charge ca rriers with the aid of an
energy greater than their binding energy [6].
Types of Solar Cells
The structure and design of the OSC’s have been improved over the ye ars and there are mainly four kinds of
Organic cells
(1) single layer (2) bilayer (3) bu lk heterojunction (4) hybrid OSC.
The first organic solar cells were based on single th ermally evaporated molecular organic layers sandwiched
between two metal electrodes of different work functions [4]. The top layer (anode) is kept transparent for the
absorption of light and made up of a thin film of organic materials. On absorbing a photon of energy equal to or
greater than the bandgap an exciton is created and the on ly external energy available to dissociate excitons and
draw the free charge carriers to opposite electrodes is due to the electric field established by the difference in the
work functions, Φanode and Φcathode , of the anode and the cathode, respectively. The efficiencies achieved in
single layer OSCs is low because of the insufficient tr ansport of free charge carriers to the electrodes.
The poor efficiency of single layer OSCs introduced the idea of a bilayer OSCs which consist of two layers of
organic material. The first layer is of donor material and the second layer is of an acceptor material and both
have different ionization potential and electr on affinities. In this design, exc iton dissociation and charge carrier
020040-2collection are far more efficient than in a single layer OSC. However, the exciton diffusion length is very less
and thus the free charge carriers so generated ar e limited in number [5].
Electrode 1 Electrode 1
Organic
materialElectron donor
Electron acceptor
Electrode 2
Electrode 2
(a) (b)
),*85( 6WUXFWXUHRI DVLQJOHOD\HUDQG EPXOWLOD\HURUJDQLF
VRODUFHOOV
The essence of the bulk heterojunction (BHJ) is to intimat ely mix the donor and acceptor components in a bulk
volume so that each donor-acceptor interface is within a distance less than the exciton diffusion length of each
absorbing site.[7] As a result, this stru cture enables charge carrier generation everywhere within the active layer,
which increases the photon to electron conversion efficiency dramatically.[6-7]
The structure and mechanism of a hybrid solar cell are sim ilar to that of a BHJ with the only difference that the
organic acceptor is replaced by an inorganic material. This is done to enhance the PCE of solar cells by utilizing
both the type of materials. A combination of silicon nanowires (SiNWs) and poly (3,4-ethylene dioxythiophene)
poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT: PSS) have produced the best power conversion efficiency of 8.40% in hybrid OSCs to-date [8].
Light Trapping Techniques
A major problem in organic solar cells is the poor m obility and recombination of the photogenerated charge
carriers. Optical losses result in the loss of a significant portion of the incoming radiation and hence proper light
trapping techniques must be incorporated to achieve the desired PCE.
Light trapping ability is the capacity of the OSCs to absorb the maximum amount of solar radiations incident on
it with feeble optical losses. This can be done by using num erous refractive structures [9], random structures
[10-11], random scatterers [12], aperture s [13] and micro lenses [14-16]. These structures can be integrated with
proper architecture to avoid recombination losses.For example, Metal nanoparticles placed above the solar cells can scatter most amount of incident light to the
substrate and increase the in-coupling efficiency. However, owing to the low refractive index of organic
materials a high coupling efficiency is difficult to ach ieve. These nanoparticles can act as optical antennas for
that matter and store energy in the form of lo calized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) [17].
There are other methods also employed su ch as the use of a diffraction grating that couples reflected light into
waveguide modes of the solar cell [18]. The structural pr operties of the grating influence the performance of the
solar cell.Light trapping elements can be induced by directly st ructuring the substrate of organic solar cells [19-23].
Substrates that have wrinkles or folds were found to have an improved photocurrent as compared to solar cells
on a flat substrate [23].
SUMMARY AND FUTURE OUTLOOK
The field of OSCs is a promising domain in future res earch. The limited charge ca rrier transport in organic
semiconductors requires a thin layer of the material. We need to design more techniques and novel designs to
achieve a greater amount of PCE and with minimal losses. In this paper, we reviewed the various material and
architectural designs and some of the light-trapping ways . Given the fact that the theoretical calculations have a
remarkable effect, however, the experimental realization is an important tool. For this reason, this field of
organic solar cells will be an active f ield of research in the coming years.
020040-3REFERENCES
[1] "April 25, 1954: Bell Labs Demonstrates the Firs t Practical Silicon Solar Cell". APS News (American
Physical Society) 18 (4). April 2009.
[2] Organic solar cell research at Stanford University.
[3] Organic solar cells: An overview Harald Hoppea and Niya zi Serdar Sariciftci Linz Institute for Organic Solar
Cells (LIOS).[4] J-M. Nunzi: Organic photovoltaic materials and devices. C. R. Physique 3, 523 (2002)[5] L.A.A. Pettersson, L.S. Roman, and O. Ingana¨s: Modeling photocurrent action spectra of photovoltaic
devices based on organic thin films. J. Appl. Phys. 86, 487 (1999).[6] P. Schilinsky, C. Waldauf, and C.J. Brabec: Reco mbination and loss analysis in polythiophene based bulk
heterojunction photodetectors. Appl. Phys. Lett. 81, 3885 (2002).[7] J-M. Nunzi: Organic photovoltaic materials and devices. C. R. Physique 3, 523 (2002).[9] S. Esiner, et al. Adv. Energy Mater. 3 (2013) 1013.[10] C. Cho, et al. Sol. Energy Mater. Sol. Cells 115 (2013) 36.
[11] D.H. Wang, et al. Org. Electron. 11 (2010) 285.
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[13] K. Tvingstedt, et al. Opt. Express 16 (2008) 21608.[14] S.D. Zilio, et al. Microelectron. Eng. 86 (2009) 1150.
[15] J.D. Myers, et al. Energy Environ. Sci. 5 (2012) 6900.
[16] ] V.E. Ferry, et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 95 (2009) 183503.[17] Light trapping in thin-film organic solar cells Zheng Tang, Wolfgang Tress and Olle Ingana¨ Biomolecular
and Organic Electronics, IFM, and Center of Organic Electronics, Linko¨ping University, SE-581 83 Linko¨ping,
Sweden.[18] Z. Tang, et al. Adv. Energy Mate C. Cocoyer, et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 88 (2006) 133108.
[19] C. Cocoyer, et al. Thin Solid Films 511 (2006) 517.
[20] L. Mu¨ller-Meskamp, et al. Adv. Mater. 24 (2012) 906.[21] J.B. Kim, et al. Nat. Photonics 6 (2012) 327.
[22] Y. Yang, et al. ACS Nano 6 (2012) 2877.
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020040-4 |
5.0057275.pdf | APL Photonics ARTICLE scitation.org/journal/app
On-demand light wave manipulation enabled
by single-layer dielectric metasurfaces
Cite as: APL Photon. 6, 086106 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0057275
Submitted: 19 May 2021 •Accepted: 20 July 2021 •
Published Online: 6 August 2021
Xuyue Guo,
Bingjie Li, Xinhao Fan, Jinzhan Zhong,
Shuxia Qi, Peng Li,a)
Sheng Liu,
Bingyan Wei,
and Jianlin Zhaoa)
AFFILIATIONS
Key Laboratory of Light-field Manipulation and Information Acquisition, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology,
and Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Optical Information Technology, School of Physical Science and Technology,
Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710129, China
a)Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed: pengli@nwpu.edu.cn and jlzhao@nwpu.edu.cn
ABSTRACT
Dielectric metasurfaces have been widely developed as ultra-compact photonic elements based on which prominent miniaturized devices of
general interest, such as spectrometers, achromatic lens, and polarization cameras, have been implemented. With metasurface applications
taking off, realizing versatile manipulation of light waves is becoming crucial. Here, by detailedly analyzing the light wave modulation prin-
ciples raising from an individual meta-atom, we discuss the minimalist design strategy of dielectric metasurfaces for multi-dimensionally
manipulating light waves, including parameter and spatial dimensions. As proof-of-concepts, those on-demand manipulations in different
dimensions and their application potentials are exemplified by metasurfaces composed of polycrystalline silicon rectangle nanopillars. This
framework provides basic guidelines for the flexible design of functionalized metasurfaces and the expansion of their applications as well as
implementation approaches of more abundant light wave manipulations and applications using hybrid structures.
©2021 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0057275
I. INTRODUCTION
The available functionalities of optical elements come from
the effective manipulation of the light wave’s fundamental parame-
ters, e.g., amplitude, phase, and polarization. Therefore, structuring
materials with capabilities to manipulate light waves has been a long-
concerned issue and attracted significant interest. To overcome the
physical limitations imposed by conventional natural materials and
traditional optical devices, the emerging metamaterials1,2exhibit
unprecedented properties and lead to various novel optical effects.3–9
However, challenging problems, e.g., high losses and costly fabrica-
tion associated with bulky structures, especially hinder them from
practical applications. Until recently, the advent of metasurfaces10–17
that are characterized as reduced dimensionality of metamaterials
makes the breakthrough to dramatically reduce the fabrication com-
plexity and increase the design flexibility,18–27providing an elegant
solution to those problems aroused in metamaterial-based optical
devices.
In the past decade, metasurfaces have been extensively stud-
ied for engineering the fundamental parameters of light waves.28–35A considerable amount of metasurfaces have been developed with
impressive applications in realms of holographic imaging,36,37polar-
ization conversion,38,39functional devices,16,17multiplexing,26,27and
nonlinear optics.40–42Nowadays, particular initiatives have been
taken to enable multifunctional metasurfaces, which are based on
the multi-dimensional manipulation of light waves. Recent progress
has made some achievements, for instance, the introduction of
unique structures (few-layer,43diatomic,44and folding45) and com-
positional materials (liquid crystal,46phase change material,47and
two-dimensional material48) provides additional degree of free-
doms (DoFs) for manipulating light waves with metasurfaces in
both parameter and space dimensions. In contrast, the use of a
simpler structure to achieve multi-dimensional light wave control
has greater advantages in practical applications and device fabri-
cations. Although some relevant studies have been reported,20,21
the characteristics of multi-dimensional light wave control that
can be realized by a minimalist structure have not been sys-
tematically analyzed, and the relationship between the manipula-
tion of parameter dimension with spatial DoFs has not been well
discussed.
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Here, by detailedly analyzing the structural birefringence of
an individual meta-atom in single-layer dielectric metasurfaces, the
light wave modulation principle for different parameter dimen-
sions and spatial DoFs is discussed, based on which the minimalist
design strategy of dielectric metasurfaces for modulation require-
ment of multiple dimensions and DoFs is demonstrated. Accord-
ing to diverse control principles, we design metasurfaces composed
of polycrystalline silicon rectangle nanopillars and then demon-
strate multifunctional applications of such minimalist metasur-
faces, including phase-only holography, complex-amplitude holog-
raphy, 3D holographic scene, axial modulation of light field, and
polarization-encrypted holography. Meanwhile, the applicable prin-
ciples of manipulating light waves in broadband and 3D space are
analyzed.
II. THEORY
To construct the modulation principles for different parame-
ter dimensions, we first investigate the light wave modulation effect
of an individual meta-atom in a single-layer dielectric metasur-
face. Figure 1 presents the schematic illustration of the wavefront
modulation mechanism of the single-layer dielectric metasurface.
According to the effective medium theory,49the meta-atom is an
effective anisotropic structure that supports large refractive index
contrast between orthogonal polarizations of light. Therefore, the
complex transmission property of such a birefringent meta-atom
can be expressed as
J=R(−θ)⎡⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎣Toeiφo0
0 Toeiφe⎤⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎦R(θ), (1)
where R(θ) is the rotation matrix, and the middle matrix accounts
for the transmission amplitudes ( To,Te) and phases ( φo,φe) alongthe ordinary and extraordinary axes, respectively, as shown in
Fig. 1(a). Assuming that two orthogonal polarizations have uniform
transmission amplitude, i.e., To=Te=T, one can further simplify
the Jones matrix according to the incident polarization. It is well
known that the light–matter interaction is generally described as
the response of two kinds of polarization states, that is, the linear
polarization (LP) and circular polarization (CP). Thus, we take these
two typical polarizations as examples, and the corresponding Jones
matrices in the CP basis [ EREL]Tand LP basis [ EHEV]Tsubse-
quently can be written as (the subscript R/L denotes the right/left CP
state, and H/V denotes the horizontal/vertical LP state, respectively)
J(CP)=Teiφ0⎡⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎣cos(δ/2) i sin(δ/2)e−i2θ
i sin(δ/2)ei2θcos(δ/2)⎤⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎦, (2)
J(LP)=T⎡⎢⎢⎢⎢⎢⎣eiφ1eiφ2
eiφ2eiφ3⎤⎥⎥⎥⎥⎥⎦,⎧⎪⎪⎪⎪⎪⎨⎪⎪⎪⎪⎪⎩eiφ1=cos2θeiφo+sin2eiφe,
eiφ2=cosθsinθeiφe−cosθsinθeiφo,
eiφ3=sin2θeiφo+cos2θeiφe,
(3)
where δ=(φo−φe) and φ0=(φo+φe)/2 depict the phase retar-
dation and propagation phase based on ordinary and extraordinary
components, respectively.
The above Jones matrices cannot be directly connected with
the modulable parameter dimensions. Therefore, to address legible
modulation principles, we further consider the whole output fields,
which are the composition of different polarizations, as schemati-
cally shown in Figs. 1(b) and 1(c). For the incidence of the ∣R⟩state,
the output field naturally consists of two components with orthog-
onal polarizations, namely, the co-polarized and cross-polarized
components; thus, the output vector field is expressed as
FIG. 1. Wavefront modulation mechanism of the single-layer dielectric metasurface. (a) Schematic illustration of the dielectric metasurface. Inset: transmission property
of a meta-atom. (b) and (c) Transmission properties of a meta-atom corresponding to two kinds of bases. (d) Conversion of polarization states on the Poincaré sphere.
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Ecp
out=Teiφocos(δ/2)∣R⟩+iTeiφosin(δ/2)ei2θ∣L⟩. (4)
As for the incidence of linear polarized light field with ∣H⟩or
∣V⟩state, the output field consequently presents a [eiφ1eiφ2]Tor
[eiφ2eiφ3]Tstate. Here, we consider a superposition state of the ∣H⟩
and∣V⟩states, namely, the ∣D⟩state, as a generalized model, and
thus, the output vector field can be further expressed as
Elp
out=Teiφ1∣H⟩+Teiφ2∣D⟩+Teiφ3∣V⟩. (5)
The modulation process introduced by the conversion of polar-
ization states on the Poincaré sphere is shown in Fig. 1(d). Clearly,
the above equations provide intuitionally controllable parameter
dimensions, including amplitude, phase, and polarization. Accord-
ing to Eq. (1), meta-atoms can be regarded as waveplates with
arbitrary phase retardation ( δ) achieved by structuring the bire-
fringence. Meanwhile, this phase retardation results in that the
two components with orthogonal CPs have complementary inten-
sities of T2cos2(δ/2) and T2sin2(δ/2), as shown in Eq. (4). In this
principle, some polarization transformers50and ultrathin energy
tailorable splitters16,51have been designed. Obviously, this mod-
ulation on amplitude or polarization only refers to single DoF
control.
To showcase the modulation capabilities of different param-
eter dimensions and spatial DoFs, we categorize the correspond-
ing controllable wavefront into different cases, which are shown
in Table I. It is worth noting that, for the CP basis, this inherent
intensity relationship disables the independent control of the wave-
front amplitudes corresponding to these two components; therefore,
the wavefront modulation has been focused on the cross-polarized
component, and given that the co-polarized component is a back-
ground noise.52For pure phase modulation, as Eq. (4) shows, these
two components have a communal propagation phase exp(i φ0),
and the cross-polarized component experiences an abrupt phase
change of ±2θ, i.e., the well-known geometric phase.53These two
types of phases are determined by the geometric size and azimuthal
angle of the meta-atom, respectively, which can be directly modu-
lated by the φ0(case 1) and θ(case 2), corresponding to two DoF
modulations.
The phase modulation has been widely utilized for two-
dimensional holographic imaging and reproducing special phase
pattern. While by contrast, the manipulation capability with respect
to three DoFs greatly improves the performance of metasurfaces
in integrated multifunctional optical devices. In scalar optics, thecomplete information of a light field requires both amplitude and
phase, namely, complex amplitude. Here, from the complex ampli-
tude distribution of the cross-polarized component in the CP basis,
i.e.,Tsin(δ/2)exp[i( φ0+2θ)], one can recognize that the amplitude
and phase are determined by T,δand φ0, 2θ, respectively (case 3
and case 4). Thus, both the amplitude and phase can be completely
and independently controlled, and benefiting from this, the com-
plex amplitude modulation has advantages in 3D space imaging over
amplitude- or phase-only modulation schemes.52It is important to
point out that these two methods have an unavoidable directly trans-
mitted component, which especially affects the axial modulation.
Therefore, a complex amplitude modulation method with extra axial
DoF control is introduced here (case 5).
The above discussions focus on the scalar field, while the pos-
sibility in simultaneous control of polarization and phase provides
huge prospect to develop polarization-dependent optical devices
and introduces extra polarization channels to increase the DoFs.
For this reason, the optical responses to each component should be
taken into account. For instance, in the case of CP basis, the com-
bined effect of propagation phase and opposite geometric phases
endows independent modulation phases φ0±2θonto two orthog-
onal bases54,55(case 6). While for the case of LP basis, as Eq. (3)
shows, one can obtain φ1=φoand φ3=φewhen the meta-atoms
are arranged without rotation ( θ=0), that is, two independent phase
patterns can be implemented on two orthogonal linear polarization
states (case 7). Then, taking rotation into consideration, as shown in
Eq. (5), three phase patterns, φ1,φ2, and φ3, which are dependent
on the geometric parameters φo,φe, and θ, can be implemented on
three linear polarization states56(case 8).
For modulation with more parameter dimensions, amplitude,
phase, and polarization response are inevitably associated with each
other, when adjusting the geometric parameters of individual meta-
atom, that is, the number of controllable parameters is limited to
two, as shown in Table I. To break this limitation, two orthogonal
polarization bases whose amplitude and phase can be precisely and
independently modulated are primarily required. For the CP basis,
this expectation cannot be achieved due to their correlated ampli-
tudes, while for the LP basis, the background noise arising from
phase-only modulation leads to the inaccuracy of superposition
state. Therefore, a capable implementation is using hybrid structures
based on exploring the inherent relationship between meta-atoms
and associating each parameter dimension with a certain structural
parameter of meta-atom.
TABLE I. Categorized modulation capabilities of a single meta-atom in a single-layer dielectric metasurface. PD: parameter
dimension, SDoF: spatial degree of freedom.
Master variable Controllable wavefront PD ×SDoF
Case 1 φ0 Eout=exp(i φ0) 1 ×2
Case 2 θ Eout=exp(±i2θ) 1 ×2
Case 3 δ,θ Eout=sin(δ/2)exp(i2 θ) 2 ×3
Case 4 T,δ,θ Eout=Tsin(δ/2)exp(i2 θ) 2 ×3
Case 5 T,φ0,θ Eout=Texp[i( φ0+2θ)] 2 ×3, 1×1
Case 6 φ0,θ Eout=exp[i( φ0+2θ)]∣L⟩+exp[i( φ0−2θ)]∣R⟩ 2×2
Case 7 φo,φe Eout=exp(i φo)∣H⟩+exp(i φe)∣V⟩ 2×2
Case 8 φo,φe,θ Eout=exp(i φ1)∣H⟩+exp(i φ2)∣D⟩+exp(i φ3)∣V⟩ 2×2
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As a proof-of-concept, we design and fabricate metasurfaces
corresponding to each case. Here, we choose the poly-Si meta-atoms
on a fused silica substrate, which have rectangular cross sections
with square lattice arrangement, to design and fabricate metasur-
faces by using COMS compatible processes (details can be found in
the Appendix). The geometric size (height H, length L, width W, and
period P) of the meta-atom is variable for different cases, depend-
ing on master variables. For simplicity and generality, computer-
generated holograms (CGHs)57are chosen to implement most of the
following experiments, which are succinct to testify the capability of
manipulating the light wave. All experiments were performed at the
wavelength of visible light band.
III. EXPERIMENT AND RESULTS
To testify the performance of pure phase modulation, that is,
cases 1 and 2, two-dimensional holographic imaging is implemented
experimentally. In practice, phase-only CGHs are generated by use
of the typical Gerchberg–Saxton (GS) algorithm.58Crucially, thepure phase modulation based on propagation phase and geometric
phase have different modulation precisions and distinct require-
ments for the selection of meta-atoms. In the case of propagation
phase modulation, the phase-only CGH needs to be discretized, and
higher nanopillars are required to ensure sufficient phase modula-
tion depth. In contrast, geometric phase modulation only requires a
single geometry and has higher modulation accuracy and efficiency
via rotating nanopillars. Figures 2(b) and 2(d) show the scanning
electron microscope (SEM) images of fabricated metasurfaces cor-
responding to cases 1 and 2, where the metasurfaces both have 1000
×1000 meta-atoms, but different heights (case 1: 610 nm and case 2:
350 nm) and periods (case 1: 450 nm and case 2: 300 nm).
Figure 2(a) shows two target images (grayscale and binary
images, respectively) and experimentally reconstructed results in
case 1 at a wavelength of 633 nm. It can be seen that these target
images are reconstructed with high performance. As a contrast, the
binary image is also reconstructed by means of case 2 under the
same experimental condition, and the corresponding result is shown
in the fourth column of Fig. 2(c). Clearly, the reconstructed image
FIG. 2. Holographic imaging based on the phase-only modulations of metasurfaces. (a) Target images and experimental results of case 1 at a wavelength of 633 nm. (b)
and (d) SEM images of fabricated metasurfaces corresponding to cases 1 and 2, respectively. Scale bars are 1 μm. (c) Experimental results of case 2 at the wavelengths
of 473, 488, 532, 633, and 670 nm, respectively. (e) Simulated transmittance and sinusoidal term spectra of the selected meta-atom in case 2. The geometric parameters
areL=174 nm and W=104 nm.
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in this case exhibits a higher fidelity, which results from the high
accuracy of geometric phase modulation. In addition, the charac-
teristic of independence of wavelength enables us to operate geo-
metric phase modulation in a broad bandwidth. Figures 2(c) and
2(e) show the reconstructed results and response spectrum of the
selected meta-atom at multiple wavelengths. As shown, although
the geometric phase modulation has lower transmittance at short
wavelengths, it still exhibits good broadband characteristics as the
experimental results present clear reconstructed holographic images
at all operating wavelengths.
Further testifications of complex amplitude modulation are
shown in Figs. 3 and 4, where complex amplitude hologram and 3D
holographic scenes are demonstrated. Figures 3(a) and 3(b) show
the simulated transmittance, propagation phase, and sinusoidal term
of selected meta-atoms in case 3. The complex amplitude holo-
grams are calculated by the Fourier transform of the target image.
Figures 3(d) and 3(e) show the fabricated metasurface ( H=610 nm,
P=450 nm) and reconstructed result of case 3. The experiment
is carried out with the setup shown in Fig. 3(c) at a wavelength of
670 nm, and the image reconstructed on the screen is photoed by a
camera. Compared with these two previous phase-only modulation
methods [Figs. 2(a) and 2(c)], the complex amplitude modulation
method intuitively improves the imaging quality and reduces the
background noise since both the amplitude and phase are faithfully
reproduced.
Figure 4(a) shows the combined amplitudes Tsin(δ/2) and
propagation phases of selected meta-atoms in case 4. In case
3, the precondition that transmittances of these meta-atoms areconstant limits the geometry selectivity. While in case 4, the con-
trol of parameter Tdoes not directly affect the final modulation
effect but supplies a greater tolerance to the selection of the meta-
atom in case 4. Consequently, under the same height of the meta-
atom, the operating wavelength is reduced to 633 nm. In order
to fully demonstrate the advantages of complex amplitude modu-
lation, a 3D holographic scene, which consists of letters “N,” “P,”
and “U” localized at three lateral planes, is performed. Figures 4(b)
and 4(c) illustrate the operation principle and experimental setup.
For the calculation of CGH, each letter image at certain diffrac-
tion distances is back-propagated to the metasurface plane by the
beam-propagation method. Figure 4(d) shows the simulated and
experimentally observed results at three lateral planes, respectively.
In this experiment, we introduce an optical microscopy setup with
the cross-polarized analyzer in order to avoid the influence of the
co-polarized component. It is noteworthy that the experimentally
reconstructed images have almost identical profiles with simulated
ones, which powerfully demonstrates the great capability of the com-
plex amplitude modulation of the metasurface for reconstructing
target images in 3D space.
The full control of the amplitude and phase significantly
improves the quality and capability of the reconstructed image.
Nevertheless, in the above two cases, the unavoidable co-polarized
component arising from the incomplete spin conversion, i.e., the
non-zero Tcos(δ/2), leads to a drawback that prevents the above
methods from axial modulation without polarization filtering. How-
ever, eliminating the co-polarized component is difficult to imple-
ment in some special situations, such as focusing. Therefore,
FIG. 3. Holographic imaging of the metasurface with complex amplitude modulation. (a) and (b) Simulated transmission amplitudes, propagation phases, and sinusoidal
term of these selected meta-atoms in case 3. (c) Schematic illustration of the experimental setup. HWP: half-wave plate and QWP: quarter-wave plate. (d) SEM image of
the fabricated metasurface corresponding to case 3. The scale bar is 1 μm. (e) Reconstructed results of case 3 at a wavelength of 670 nm.
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FIG. 4. 3D imaging of the metasurface with complex amplitude modulation. (a) Simulated amplitudes and propagation phase of the selected meta-atoms in case 4. (b)
Schematic illustration of the 3D holographic scene. (c) Schematic illustration of the experimental setup. Inset: SEM image of the fabricated metasurface. The scale bar is
1μm. (d) Simulated and experiment results at a wavelength of 633 nm.
in case 5, the phase retardation δis fixed as π, making sure that the
incident spin polarization is totally transformed into the orthogo-
nal one; hence, the amplitude and phase modulations are dependent
onTand φ0+2θ, respectively, as shown in Fig. 5(a). Obviously,
the amplitude is only dependent on the transmittance of meta-atom
[Fig. 5(b)], but the phase term is related to both the propagation
and geometric phases. Unfortunately, the transmittance and prop-
agation phase are jointly related to the geometry of meta-atoms. To
break this relationship, an opposite rotation angle φ0/2 should be
added onto θ, i.e., θ’=θ−φ0/2, and then the amplitude and phase
are independently and completely controllable.
As an example, an axially structured light field with sinc-
functional intensity distribution (calculated by the spatial spectrum
optimization method based on the Durnin ring59,60) is demonstrated
to assess this axial tailoring capability. Figure 5(d) shows the mea-
sured intensity distribution (normalized) in the y–zplane, which is
observed through the setup shown in Fig. 5(c). The microscope sys-
tem is localized on a linear translation stage with a scanning interval
of 10 μm. The simulated and measured on-axis intensity distribu-
tions (normalized) are displayed in Fig. 5(e). As shown, this method
can sustain the construction of axial light field.
The above discussions all refer to the wavefront manipula-
tion of scalar light field, namely, the cross-polarized component. Inaddition to the enhancement of multiplexing capability, numerous
intriguing phenomena related to vector fields, such as their con-
struction, enhanced longitudinally polarized component, and super-
resolution focusing, are based on the combined modulation of two
spin states.61,62To address polarization-dependent light field modu-
lation, more parameters should be taken into account. As is known,
the geometric phase is always accompanied by a “twin field,” which
originates from the phase accumulation of opposite CP state tran-
sition. Therefore, by combining the propagation phase, two CPs
can obtain independent phase modulation of φ0±2θ, as shown in
Fig. 6(a). However, in this case, the inherent amplitude correlation
disables the independent amplitude modulation of two CPs. Thus
two CPs are commonly considered to have unitary amplitude, i.e.,
sin(δ/2)=1. Here, a holographic reconstruction of two complemen-
tary images [Figs. 6(c) and 6(d)] is employed to showcase the poten-
tial in polarization-encrypted application. Figures 6(e)–6(g) display
the experimental results under the incidences of light fields with dif-
ferent polarizations. As shown, when a linear polarized light field
illuminates, the metasurface outputs a uniform spot without pattern,
but the polarization-dependent patterns show up for the CP incident
light fields.
In comparison, LP-based methods provide more optional
channels. Thanks to the “structural birefringence” of meta-atoms,
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FIG. 5. Longitudinal modulation enabled by the metasurface. (a) Schematic of the modulation effect in case 5. (b) Transmittances of 17 selected meta-atoms. (c) Schematic
illustration of the experimental setup. Inset: SEM image of the metasurface. The scale bar is 100 μm. (d) Measured intensity distribution in the y–zplane. (e) Simulated and
measured on-axis intensity distributions.
arbitrary manipulation can be implemented on a certain polarized
component modulated along ordinary or extraordinary axis theo-
retically, as described in Eq. (1). Here, the transmittance of each
meta-atom is set to be unitary. In Eq. (3), when θ=0, one obtains
φ1=φoand φ3=φe, namely, two independent phase modulationscan be implemented on two orthogonal linear polarization chan-
nels. While taking rotation into account, three independent phase
modulations can be implemented on three linear polarization chan-
nels. The experimental setup and SEM images of two LP-based
metasurfaces without and with rotation are shown in Figs 7(a)–7(c).
FIG. 6. Polarization-dependent holographic imaging of the metasurface based on the combined modulations of two CPs. (a) Schematic of the combined modulation of two
CPs. (b) SEM image of the metasurface. The scale bar is 1 μm. (c) and (d) Target images encoded on two CPs; reconstructed results for the incidence of a (e) linearly
polarized, (f) right-handed CP, and (g) left-handed CP light field.
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FIG. 7. Polarization-encrypted imaging of the metasurface. (a) Schematic illustration of the experimental setup. (b) and (c) SEM images of the metasurface corresponding
to cases 7 and 8. Scale bars are 0.5 μm. (d) and (e) Experimental results of polarization-encrypted imaging based on modulation mechanisms of cases 7 and 8. The red
and blue arrows depict the incident and detected polarization directions, respectively.
For the metasurface without rotation, four letters are encoded
into the horizontal and vertical polarizations by phases φ1and
φ3, respectively. The experimental results are depicted in Fig. 7(d).
Under the illumination of a diagonal polarized light field, patterns
encoded in two polarization channels are simultaneously recon-
structed. By rotating the polarization analyzer, the reconstructed
pattern is switched from “AB” to “CD.” For the second metasurface,
an additional polarization channel is available due to the introduc-
tion of geometry rotation. Three letter patterns are encoded into the
horizontal, vertical, and diagonal linear polarizations by phases φ1,
φ2, and φ3, respectively. As shown in Fig. 7(e), for the incidence
of a diagonal polarized light field, three patterns in three polariza-
tion channels are simultaneously reconstructed without the ana-
lyzer. While for the cases of H- or V-polarization incidence, the pat-
tern in the orthogonal polarization channel disappears, respectively.
Furthermore, individual polarization channels can be switched by
changing the incident and analyzed polarization directions. There-
into, the “XYZ” pattern, namely, diagonal polarization channel, can
be obtained with the orthogonal polarizer and analyzer.
IV. DISCUSSIONS
The on-demand modulation principles of single-layer dielectric
metasurfaces for multiple dimension control have been theoretically
and experimentally exhibited, but more details merit discussions.
Notably, arbitrary modulation can be implemented through manip-
ulating the “structural birefringence” of meta-atoms and various
applications can be realized according to the above principle. How-
ever, limited by the properties of natural materials, the modulation
depth and width are restricted to meet some particular applications,
which also results in confined operating wavelengths and repre-
sents a daunting exploratory and computational problem. Therefore,
invariant parameters and varying thicknesses are used in different
cases to obtain an enough modulation range.Second, the systematic strategy for on-demand light wave
manipulation demonstrated here avoids unnecessary complexity in
both the design process and experimental operation, which presents
the full potential of single-layer dielectric metasurfaces, and leads to
a series of applications. The pure phase modulation can be realized
in two ways, among which the geometric phase modulation has been
widely used in device design due to its convenience, high precision,
and broad bandwidth. By contrast, the complex amplitude mod-
ulation has an advantage of information density over phase-only
hologram, which leads to holographic images with higher quality,
higher fidelity, and the reconstruction in 3D space. Moreover, for
applications involving holographic data encryption or storage, the
complex amplitude hologram can greatly increase the storage capac-
ity. Furthermore, the axial modulation method in case 5 enriches
the functionalities of complex amplitude modulation and provides
an additional DoF in 3D light wave manipulation, as well as an
approach for constructing tightly focusing fields with longitudi-
nally oscillating polarization. In addition, the polarization-encrypted
holography exhibited in cases 6–8 effectively enlarges the design
space of polarization-dependent devices, and further applications,
such as polarization-multiplexing and information encryption, can
be expected. It is no doubt that such a strategy provides a basic guide-
line for the flexible design of optical metasurfaces and an effective
way for the expansion of their applications.
Finally, besides the functionality, the modulation efficiency is
another concerned issue. Notably, the pure phase modulation meth-
ods have advantages of efficiency because of the excellent encoding
techniques. On the other hand, the modulation efficiency is closely
related to the amplitude coefficient of the Fourier transform CGHs,
i.e.,Tsin(δ/2)≠1. In our experiment, taking the absorption of mate-
rial into account, the diffraction efficiency in case 2 is 62.5% (with
polarization conversion efficiency exceeding 95%), while in cases
3 and 4, it is about 10%. For axial modulation, the optimized spa-
tial spectrum can significantly enhance the generation efficiency to
about 20%, but it is still strongly dependent on the pre-established
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distribution. In polarization-dependent modulations, the response
of the meta-atoms and the quality of fabrication are the main factors
affecting the efficiency; here, the diffraction efficiency of cases 6–8 is
all about 50%. As a whole, the demonstrated design principles and
devices can be characterized as low loss.
V. CONCLUSION
In summary, we have systematically discussed multi-
dimensional light wave manipulation via single-layer dielectric
metasurfaces. To showcase such a strategy, the “structural
birefringence” of meta-atoms on different polarization bases is
considered, and the modulation capabilities from single to multiple
parameter dimensions are categorized. Based on the proposed
mechanism, complete manipulation of the wavefront amplitude,
phase, and polarization state has been achieved, and the poly-Si
meta-atoms and holographic method are employed to experimen-
tally demonstrate how various functionalities are achieved. The
results show that single-layer dielectric metasurfaces exhibit strong
modulation capability in various light wave manipulation, and
the design principle is simple but has powerful extension for the
flexible design of optical metasurfaces. This work offers a systematic
and generalizable method toward manipulating light waves at will
with meta-devices, and provides a possible approach for achieving
more abundant manipulation and applications through hybrid
structures.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 91850118, 11774289, 11634010,
61675168, 12074313, and 11804277), the National Key Research
and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2017YFA0303800),
the Natural Science Basic Research Program of Shaanxi (Grant
No. 2020JM-104), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central
Universities (Grant Nos. 3102019JC008 and 310201911cx022), and
the Innovation Foundation for Doctor Dissertation of Northwest-
ern Polytechnical University (Grant Nos. CX202046, CX202047,
and CX202048). We thank the Zhiwei Song of National Center for
Nanoscience and Technology for supplying the materials as well as
the Analytical and Testing Center of Northwestern Polytechnical
University.
APPENDIX: METHOD
The metasurfaces were fabricated based on the process of
deposition, patterning, lift off, and etching. At first, a 350 nm
(610 nm)-thick poly-Si film was deposited on a 500 μm-thick fused
silica substrate by inductively coupled plasma enhanced chemical
vapor deposition (ICPECVD), and then a 100 nm-thick hydrogen
silsesquioxane electron beam spin-on resist (HSQ, XR-1541) was
spin-coated onto the poly-Si film and baked on a hot plate at 100○C
for 2 min. Next, the desired structures were imprinted by using stan-
dard electron beam lithography (EBL, Nanobeam Limited, NB5) and
subsequently developed in NMD-3 solution (concentration 2.38%)
for 2 min. Finally, by using inductively coupled plasma etching
(ICP, Oxford Instruments, Oxford Plasma Pro 100 Cobra300), thedesired structures were transferred from resistance to the poly-Si
film.
DATA AVAILABILITY
The data that support the findings of this study are available
from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.
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APL Photon. 6, 086106 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0057275 6, 086106-10
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