Adsorption of alkali and alkaline-earth metal atoms on the reconstructed graphene-like BN single sheet

• We examined the most favorable site for metal atoms adsorbed on BN sheet.
• We calculated many properties of BN sheet with metal atoms.
• The diffusion pathways and barriers of metal atoms have been analyzed.

A graphene-like BN single sheet with absorbed alkali and alkaline-earth metal atoms have been investigated by using a first-principles method within the framework of density functional theory (DFT). The electronic structure of BN sheet with adsorbed metal atoms is mainly determined by the metal electronic state which is near to the Fermi level owing to the wide band gap of pure BN sheet. So, we calculated the adsorption energy, charge transfer and work function after the metal adsorbed on BN sheet. We found that the interaction between the metal atoms and BN surface was very strong, and the stable adsorption site for all the adsorbed atoms concluded was high-coordination surface site (H-center) rather than the surface dangling bond sites from the perspective of simple bond-counting arguments. Our results indicate that the interaction of BN sheet with metal atoms could help in the development of metallic nanoscale devices.

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