LONDON - Science researchers have reported the growth of asingle layer of silicon on top of silver, in a hexagonal 2-D form of siliconsimilar to the graphene form of carbon.
A team from universities in Berlin and Marseille andresearch institutes in Rome and Saint Aubin, France has published a paper inPhysical Review Letters that claims to show evidence of the synthesis ofepitaxial silicene sheets on a silver (111) substrate.
Silicon and carbon both have four valence electrons whichmeans that the two elements should be able to demonstrate a degree ofsimilarity including the possibility of silicon-based life forms andcarbon-based conductors and semiconductors.
Graphene has attracted much attention recently because itoffers higher electron mobility than materials used to date in silicon-basedtransistors. However, before it has reached commercial deployment if could berivaled its silicon equivalent, especially because of the inherentcompatibility silicene has with silicon-based electronics and how easily itcould be used in wafer fabs.
Academics speculated about the possible synthesis ofsilicene in 2010 and some claimed to have seen structures suggestive ofsilicene. The team from Technical University Berlin, Aix-Marseille University,CNR-ISM Rome and Synchrotron Soleil in Saint Aubin, France state in theabstract to the Physical Review Letter that their evidence, based on acombination of scanning tunneling microscopy and angular-resolved photoemissionspectroscopy in conjunction with calculations based on density functionaltheory, is compelling.
Silicene is thought to differ from graphene by having arippled surface but the electronic properties of silicene nanoribbons andsheets are said to resemble those of graphene, according to a review of silicenepublished by another team.
This story was originally posted by EETimes.
