First Study on the Electronic and Donor Atom Properties of the Ultra-Thin Nanoflakes Quantum Dots

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2022 Mar 15;12(6):966. doi: 10.3390/nano12060966.

Abstract

Nanoflakes ultra-thin quantum dots are theoretically studied as innovative nanomaterials delivering outstanding results in various high fields. In this work, we investigated the surface properties of an electron confined in spherical ultra-thin quantum dots in the presence of an on-center or off-center donor impurity. Thus, we have developed a novel model that leads us to investigate the different nanoflake geometries by changing the spherical nanoflake coordinates (R, α, ϕ). Under the infinite confinement potential model, the study of these nanostructures is performed within the effective mass and parabolic band approximations. The resolution of the Schrödinger equation is accomplished by the finite difference method, which allows obtaining the eigenvalues and wave functions for an electron confined in the nanoflakes surface. Through the donor and electron energies, the transport, optoelectronic, and surface properties of the nanostructures were fully discussed according to their practical significance. Our findings demonstrated that these energies are more significant in the small nanoflakes area by altering the radius and the polar and azimuthal angles. The important finding shows that the ground state binding energy depends strongly on the geometry of the nanoflakes, despite having the same surface. Another interesting result is that the presence of the off-center shallow donor impurity permits controlling the binding energy, which leads to adjusting the immense behavior of the curved surface nanostructures.

Keywords: binding energy; donor impurity; ground state energy; nanoflakes; ultra-thin quantum dot.