Silicene structures on silver surfaces

In this paper we report on several structures of silicene, the analog of graphene for silicon, on the silver surfaces Ag(100), Ag(110) and Ag(111). Deposition of Si produces honeycomb structures on these surfaces. In particular, we present an extensive theoretical study of silicene on Ag(111) for which several recent experimental studies have been published. Different silicene structures were obtained only by varying the silicon coverage and/or its atomic arrangement. All the structures studied show that silicene is buckled, with a Si-Si nearest neighbor distance varying between 2.28 and 2.5 Å. Due to the buckling in the silicene sheet, the apparent (lateral) Si-Si distance can be as low as 1.89 Å. We also found that for a given coverage and symmetry, one may observe different scanning tunneling microscopy images corresponding to structures that differ by only a translation.

[1]  Barrier height determination of silicide-silicon contact by hybrid density functional simulation , 2011 .

[2]  G. G. Stokes.  "J." , 1890, The New Yale Book of Quotations.

[3]  B. Aufray,et al.  Growth of silicene layers on Ag(111): unexpected effect of the substrate temperature , 2012, Journal of physics. Condensed matter : an Institute of Physics journal.

[4]  Kresse,et al.  Efficient iterative schemes for ab initio total-energy calculations using a plane-wave basis set. , 1996, Physical review. B, Condensed matter.

[5]  Noriaki Takagi,et al.  Structure of Silicene Grown on Ag(111) , 2012 .

[6]  M. E. Dávila,et al.  Self-aligned silicon quantum wires on Ag(110) , 2005 .

[7]  G. Kresse,et al.  From ultrasoft pseudopotentials to the projector augmented-wave method , 1999 .

[8]  Blöchl,et al.  Projector augmented-wave method. , 1994, Physical review. B, Condensed matter.

[9]  Physics of Silicene Stripes , 2008, 0811.2611.

[10]  G. G. Guzmán-Verri,et al.  Electronic structure of silicon-based nanostructures , 2007, 1107.0075.

[11]  I. Lyashenko,et al.  Statistical theory of the boundary friction of atomically flat solid surfaces in the presence of a lubricant layer , 2012 .

[12]  Miss A.O. Penney.  (b) , 1974, The New Yale Book of Quotations.

[13]  Burke,et al.  Generalized Gradient Approximation Made Simple. , 1996, Physical review letters.

[14]  D. Hamann,et al.  Theory and Application for the Scanning Tunneling Microscope , 1983 .

[15]  M I Katsnelson,et al.  Magnetic correlations at graphene edges: basis for novel spintronics devices. , 2007, Physical review letters.

[16]  Ronaldo Mota,et al.  Ab initio calculations for a hypothetical material: Silicon nanotubes , 2000 .

[17]  G. Kresse,et al.  Ab initio molecular dynamics for liquid metals. , 1993 .

[18]  S. Lebègue,et al.  Electronic structure of two-dimensional crystals from ab-initio theory , 2009, 0901.0440.

[19]  P. Vogt,et al.  Epitaxial silicene: can it be strongly strained? , 2012 .

[20]  S. Vizzini,et al.  Growth of straight, atomically perfect, highly metallic silicon nanowires with chiral asymmetry. , 2008, Nano letters.

[21]  E. Akturk,et al.  Two- and one-dimensional honeycomb structures of silicon and germanium. , 2008, Physical review letters.

[22]  T. Iwamoto,et al.  Fused tricyclic disilenes with highly strained Si-Si double bonds: addition of a Si-Si single bond to a Si-Si double bond. , 2006, Angewandte Chemie.

[23]  Patrick Vogt,et al.  Silicene: compelling experimental evidence for graphenelike two-dimensional silicon. , 2012, Physical review letters.

[24]  J. H. Westbrook,et al.  Intermetallic compounds : principles and practice , 2002 .

[25]  F. Ronci,et al.  Formation of a one-dimensional grating at the molecular scale by self-assembly of straight silicon nanowires , 2007 .

[26]  J. Michl,et al.  Tetramesityldisilene, a Stable Compound Containing a Silicon-Silicon Double Bond , 1981, Science.

[27]  G. Kresse,et al.  Efficiency of ab-initio total energy calculations for metals and semiconductors using a plane-wave basis set , 1996 .

[28]  Growth of Si nanostructures on Ag(001) , 2007 .

[29]  Susumu Yamada,et al.  Experimental Evidence for Nanostructural Tube Formation of Silicon Atoms , 2006 .

[30]  C. Balasubramanian,et al.  Experimental imaging of silicon nanotubes , 2005 .

[31]  Peng Cheng,et al.  Evidence of silicene in honeycomb structures of silicon on Ag(111). , 2012, Nano letters.

[32]  Abdelkader Kara,et al.  Graphene-like silicon nanoribbons on Ag(110): A possible formation of silicene , 2010 .

[33]  C. Ottaviani,et al.  Evidence of graphene-like electronic signature in silicene nanoribbons , 2010 .

[34]  Hanna Enriquez,et al.  Epitaxial growth of a silicene sheet , 2010, 1204.0523.

[35]  S. Vizzini,et al.  Burning match oxidation process of silicon nanowires screened at the atomic scale. , 2008, Nano letters.

[36]  A. Seitsonen,et al.  A review on silicene - New candidate for electronics , 2012 .