Electronic structure and minimal models for flat and corrugated CuO monolayers: an ab initio study

TL;DR

This study uses ab initio calculations to analyze the electronic structure of flat and corrugated CuO monolayers, revealing how structural variations influence their electronic properties and proposing minimal models for these systems.

Contribution

It provides detailed electronic structure calculations of CuO monolayers and introduces minimal models based on Wannier functions, highlighting the effects of corrugation and strain.

Findings

Corrugation shifts the Cu 3d bands and lifts degeneracy.

Corrugated CuO is more energetically stable than flat.

Strain induces topological Lifshitz transitions.

Abstract

$\mathrm{CuO}$ atomic thin monolayer ($\mathrm{mlCuO}$) was synthesized recently. Interest in the $\mathrm{mlCuO}$ is based on its close relation to $\mathrm{CuO_2}$ layers in typical high temperature cuprate superconductors. Here, we present the calculation of the band structure, the density of states and the Fermi surface of the flat $\mathrm{mlCuO}$ as well as the corrugated $\mathrm{mlCuO}$ within the density functional theory (DFT) in the generalized gradient approximation (GGA). In the flat $\mathrm{mlCuO}$, the $\mathrm{Cu}$-$3d_{x^2-y^2}$ band crosses the Fermi level, while the $\mathrm{Cu}$-$3d_{xz,yz}$ hybridized band is located just below it. The corrugation leads to a significant shift of the $\mathrm{Cu}$-$3d_{xz,yz}$ hybridized band down in energy and a degeneracy lifting for the $\mathrm{Cu}$-$3d_{x^2-y^2}$ bands. Corrugated $\mathrm{mlCuO}$ is more energetically favorable than the flat one. In addition, we compared the electronic structure of the considered $\mathrm{CuO}$ monolayers with bulk $\mathrm{CuO}$ systems. We also investigated the influence of a crystal lattice strain (which might occur on some interfaces) on the electronic structure of both $\mathrm{mlCuO}$ and determined the critical strains of topological Lifshitz transitions. Finally, we proposed a number of different minimal models for the flat and the corrugated $\mathrm{mlCuO}$ using projections onto different Wannier functions basis sets and obtained the corresponding Hamiltonian matrix elements in a real space.