Dependence of electronic and optical properties of multilayer SiC and GeC on stacking sequence and external electric field

•Multilayer SiC and GeC with different stacking sequences are proposed.•External electric field effect are analyzed.•Tunable electronic and optical properties are obtained.

The electronic and optical properties of different stacked multilayer SiC and GeC are investigated with and without external electric field (EEF). The band gaps of multilayer SiC and GeC are found smaller than that of monolayer SiC and GeC due to the interlayer coupling effect. When EEF is applied, the direct band gaps (ΔK–M) of multilayer SiC and direct band gaps (ΔK–K) of multilayer GeC all turn to indirect band gaps (ΔK–G) as the band at the G point drops dramatically toward zero. The imaginary part ε2(ω)s of multilayer SiC and GeC show that new absorption peaks between 2–5 eV appear when the polarized direction is perpendicular to the layer plane, and new absorption peaks in infrared region appear as the EEF is higher than a certain point when the polarized direction is parallel to the layer plane. Our calculations reveal that different stacking sequences and EEF can provide a wide tunable band structures and optical properties for multilayer SiC and GeC.

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