ELECTRONIC STRUCTURE OF STRAINED VANADIUM OVERLAYERS ON W(100) AND Ta(100)

We study the role of hybridization and overlayer–substrate lattice mismatch in determining the surface electronic structure of strained V monolayers and bilayers on W(100) and Ta(100). The local density of states is calculated in the tight-binding approximation within the surface-Green-function-matching formalism. For one monolayer of V on W(100) and Ta(100), the strong monolayer–substrate 3d–5d hybridization determines the features of the surface local density of states, with essentially no differences between 1V/W(100) and 1V/Ta(100). For the bilayer we find that the electronic structure of the topmost layer depends strongly on the lattice mismatch between overlayer and substrate. In particular, we find that the surface local density of states at the Fermi level in 2V/Ta(100) is 69% higher than in 1V/Ta(100); the lattice mismatch between bulk constants of V and Ta is 9.0%. These results indicate that strain induces strong band narrowing in vanadium overlayers on transition metals, despite the large overlayer–substrate hybridization, but depends critically on the film thickness.