Curvature-induced geometric potential in strain-driven nanostructures

TL;DR

This paper derives an effective Schrödinger equation for electrons in curved nanostructures, revealing that strain-induced geometric potentials significantly amplify curvature effects, leading to enhanced electron localization and band gap formation.

Contribution

It introduces a new theoretical framework for understanding strain-driven curvature effects on electron behavior in nanostructures, highlighting the importance of strain-induced potentials.

Findings

Strain-induced geometric potential strongly renormalizes curvature effects.

Enhanced electron localization in nanocorrugated films.

Opening of substantial band gaps due to curvature and strain.

Abstract

We derive the effective dimensionally reduced Sch\"odinger equation for electrons in strain-driven curved nanostructures by adiabatic separation of fast and slow quantum degrees of freedom. The emergent strain-induced geometric potential strongly renormalizes the purely quantum curvature-induced potential and enhances the effects of curvature by several orders of magnitude. Applying this analysis to nanocorrugated films shows that this curvature-induced potential leads to strongly enhanced electron localization and the opening of substantial band gaps.