Silicene Like Domains on IrSi3 Crystallites

TL;DR

This paper reports a novel method for growing silicene-like domains on IrSi3 nanocrystals through high-temperature surface reconstruction, combining experimental and computational analysis to explore their properties.

Contribution

It introduces a new growth technique for silicene on IrSi3 nanocrystals and provides detailed morphological and electronic characterization.

Findings

Silicene-like domains form on IrSi3 crystallites.

STM and spectroscopy reveal their electronic properties.

First-principles calculations support experimental observations.

Abstract

Recently, silicene, the graphene equivalent of silicon, has attracted a lot of attention due to its compatibility with Si-based electronics. So far, silicene has been epitaxy grown on various crystalline surfaces such as Ag(110), Ag(111), Ir(111), ZrB2(0001) and Au(110) substrates. Here, we present a new method to grow silicene via high temperature surface reconstruction of hexagonal IrSi3 nanocrystals. The h-IrSi3 nanocrystals are formed by annealing thin Ir layers on Si(111) surface. A detailed analysis of the STM images shows the formation of silicene like domains on the surface of some of the IrSi3 crystallites. We studied both morphology and electronic properties of these domains by using both scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy and first-principles calculation methods.