Phase-dependent epitaxy for antimonene growth on silver substrate

TL;DR

This study investigates the growth mechanisms of antimonene on silver substrates, revealing phase-dependent epitaxy and the influence of surface alloys, which advances understanding of its synthesis for electronic applications.

Contribution

The paper uncovers the role of reconstructed supercells and surface alloys in phase-dependent antimonene growth on silver, including the novel observation of α-phase antimonene.

Findings

Both flat honeycomb and β-phase antimonene can grow on silver.

α-phase antimonene was observed to grow on silver substrates.

Surface alloys actively influence the phase and growth of antimonene.

Abstract

Antimonene is a novel two-dimensional topological semiconductor material with strain driven tunable electronic structure for future electronic and spintronic devices, but the growth of clean antimonene is not fully understood. In this work, the growth process of antimonene on silver substrate has been studied in detail by using density functional theory and particle swarm optimization algorithms. The results show that, in addition to the experimental reported flat honeycomb and $\beta$-phase antimonene, $\alpha$-phase antimonene was observed to be able to grow on thus substrates, and the phases of antimonene were deeply dependent on the reconstructed supercells and surface alloys. It has been demonstrated that the surface alloys on substrate play an active role in the growth of antimonene.