Interfacial Coupling and Electronic Structure of Two-Dimensional Silicon Grown on the Ag(111) Surface at High Temperature

TL;DR

This study investigates how interfacial coupling affects the electronic properties of two-dimensional silicon grown on Ag(111), revealing that substrate interactions significantly influence electron coherence and surface states, which are crucial for silicene development.

Contribution

The paper provides detailed experimental insights into the electronic structure and interfacial effects of 2D silicon on Ag(111), emphasizing the importance of substrate interactions for silicene properties.

Findings

Electron phase coherence length decreases with film thickness.

Surface state diminishes approaching the interface.

Intrinsic electronic structure matches Ag on Si(111).

Abstract

Freestanding silicene, a monolayer of Si arranged in a honeycomb structure, has been predicted to give rise to massless Dirac fermions, akin to graphene. However, Si structures grown on a supporting substrate can show properties that strongly deviate from the freestanding case. Here, combining scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy and differential conductance mapping, we show that the electrical properties of the ($\sqrt{3}\times\sqrt{3}$) phase of few-layer Si grown on Ag(111) strongly depend on film thickness, where the electron phase coherence length decreases and the free-electron-like surface state gradually diminishes when approaching the interface. These features are presumably attributable to the inelastic inter-band electron-electron scattering originating from the overlap between the surface state, interface state and the bulk state of the substrate. We further demonstrate that the intrinsic electronic structure of the as grown ($\sqrt{3}\times\sqrt{3}$) phase is identical to that of the ($\sqrt{3}\times\sqrt{3}$)R$30^{\circ}$ reconstructed Ag on Si(111), both of which exhibit the parabolic energy-momentum dispersion relation with comparable electron effective masses. These findings highlight the essential role of interfacial coupling on the properties of two-dimensional Si structures grown on supporting substrates, which should be thoroughly scrutinized in pursuit of silicene.