Electron Energy Loss Function of Silicene and Germanene Multilayers on Silver

TL;DR

This paper computes the electron energy loss spectra of multilayer silicene and germanene on silver, revealing significant plasmonic response changes with more than three layers, aiding spectroscopic identification.

Contribution

It introduces a multiscale calculation method for EELS in silicene and germanene multilayers on silver, highlighting layer-dependent plasmonic behavior.

Findings

Significant change in plasmonic response occurs after three layers.

Multiscale calculations effectively model EELS for these structures.

Spectroscopic methods can identify multilayer coatings.

Abstract

We calculate electron energy loss spectra (EELS) for composite plasmonic structures based on silicene and germanene. A continued-fraction expression for the effective dielectric function is used to perform multiscale calculations of EELS for both silicene and germanene-based structures on silver substrates. A distinctive change in plasmonic response occurs for structures with a germanene or silicene surface coating of more than three layers. These differences may be exploited using spectroscopic characterization in order to determine if a few-layer coating has been successfully fabricated.