Epitaxial Growth of Large-Scale α-Phase Antimonene.

Two-dimensional materials composed of elements from the 15th group of the periodic table remain largely unexplored. The primary challenge in advancing this research is the lack of large-scale layers that would facilitate extensive studies using laterally averaging techniques and enable functionalization for the fabrication of novel electronic, optoelectronic, and spintronic devices. In this report, we present a method for synthesizing large-scale antimonene layers, on the order of cm.

Emergent Dirac Fermions in Epitaxial Planar Silicene Heterostructure.

Silicene, a single layer of Si atoms, shares many remarkable electronic properties with graphene. So far, silicene has been synthesized in its epitaxial form on a few surfaces of solids. Thus, the problem of silicene-substrate interaction appears, which usually depresses the original electronic behavior but may trigger properties superior to those of bare components.

Experimental evidence of a new class of massless fermions.

The discovery of graphene with its massless fermions established a new branch of nanomaterials in which linear bands can be realized. It has been predicted that beside Dirac fermions revealing isotropic character and observed in a number of two-dimensional materials, another class of massless fermions can also be found: strongly anisotropic fortune teller-like states which form planes instead of cones in the electronic structure. Here, we demonstrate that such distinct electronic structures exist and can be found in a surface layer of silicon.

New Findings on Multilayer Silicene on Si(111)√3×√3R30°-Ag Template.

We report new findings on multilayer silicene grown on Si(111)√3 × √3 R30°-Ag template, after the recent first compelling experimental evidence of its synthesis. Low-energy electron diffraction, reflection high-energy electron diffraction, and energy-dispersive grazing incidence X-ray diffraction measurements were performed to show up the fingerprints of √3 × √3 multilayer silicene. Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy displayed new features in the second surface Brillouin zone, attributed to the multilayer silicene on Si(111)√3 × √3 R30°-Ag.

Purely one-dimensional bands with a giant spin-orbit splitting: Pb nanoribbons on Si(553) surface.

We report on a giant Rashba type splitting of metallic bands observed in one-dimensional structures prepared on a vicinal silicon substrate. A single layer of Pb on Si(553) orders this vicinal surface making perfectly regular distribution of monatomic steps. Although there is only one layer of Pb, the system reveals very strong metallic and purely one-dimensional character, which manifests itself in multiple surface state bands crossing the Fermi level in the direction parallel to the step edges and a small band gap in the perpendicular direction.