Defect and Substitution-Induced Silicene Sensor to Probe Toxic Gases

Structural, electronic, and gas-sensing properties of pure, defected, and substituted silicene monolayer have been studied using first-principles calculations based on density functional theory. The spin-polarized calculations with van der Waals effect taken into consideration have revealed that the pristine silicene sheet rarely adsorbs the CO2, H2S, and SO2 gas molecules, which restricts the gas-sensing application of this 2D material. However, inducing vacancy defect in silicene drastically changes the electronic properties, and as a consequence it also improves the binding of exposed gas molecules significantly. Our Bader charge analysis reveals that a considerable amount of charge is being transferred from the defected silicene to the gases, resulting in binding energy improvement between silicene and the gas molecules. The change in binding energies has further been explained by plotting density of states. In addition to the vacancy defects, we have also considered the substitution of Al, B, N, and S in silicene. We found that the sensing propensity of silicene is more sensitive to the vacancy defect, as compared with the impurities.