Formation of a Te-Ag Honeycomb Alloy: A New Type of Two-Dimensional Material

TL;DR

This paper reports the synthesis and characterization of a novel 2D Te-Ag honeycomb alloy with semiconducting properties and a direct band gap of approximately 0.7 eV, expanding the family of 2D materials for electronic applications.

Contribution

The study introduces a new 2D Te-Ag alloy with a honeycomb structure, confirmed by ARPES and DFT, demonstrating semiconducting behavior with a tunable band gap.

Findings

Successful synthesis of 2D Te-Ag honeycomb alloy.

Confirmation of alloy formation via ARPES and DFT.

Predicted direct band gap of ~0.7 eV.

Abstract

Inspired by the unique properties of graphene, the focus in the literature is now on investigations of various two-dimensional (2D) materials with the aim to explore their properties for future applications. The group IV analogues of graphene, i.e., silicene, germanene and stanene have been intensively studied in recent years. However, their semi-metallic band structures hamper their use in electronic applications. Hence, the synthesis of 2D materials with band gaps of various sizes has attracted a large interest. Here, we report a successful preparation of a 2D Te-Ag binary alloy with a honeycomb structure. Angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy (ARPES) in combination with first-principles calculations using density functional theory (DFT) confirmed the formation of this binary alloy. The semiconducting property is verified by the ARPES data and a direct gap of ~0.7 eV is predicted by the DFT calculations.