Bending Two-Dimensional Materials To Control Charge Localization and Fermi-Level Shift

High-performance electronics requires the fine control of semiconductor conductivity. In atomically thin two-dimensional (2D) materials, traditional doping technique for controlling carrier concentration and carrier type may cause crystal damage and significant mobility reduction. Contact engineering for tuning carrier injection and extraction and carrier type may suffer from strong Fermi-level pinning. Here, using first-principles calculations, we predict that mechanical bending, as a unique attribute of thin 2D materials, can be used to control conductivity and Fermi-level shift. We find that bending can control the charge localization of top valence bands in both MoS2 and phosphorene nanoribbons. The donor-like in-gap edge-states of armchair MoS2 ribbon and their associated Fermi-level pinning can be removed by bending. A bending-controllable new in-gap state and accompanying direct–indirect gap transition are predicted in armchair phosphorene nanoribbon. We demonstrate that such emergent bending effects are realizable. The bending stiffness as well as the effective thickness of 2D materials are also derived from first principles. Our results are of fundamental and technological relevance and open new routes for designing functional 2D materials for applications in which flexuosity is essential.