Two-dimensional germanium islands with Dirac signature on Ag2Ge surface alloy

TL;DR

This paper reports the successful fabrication of monolayer germanene on a Ag2Ge surface alloy, demonstrating Dirac electron behavior through spectroscopy and theoretical calculations, advancing the development of 2D Dirac materials for electronic applications.

Contribution

It presents the first successful fabrication of germanene on a Ag2Ge surface alloy with confirmed Dirac dispersion, enabling future studies and applications of 2D Dirac materials.

Findings

Linear energy dispersion confirmed by spectroscopy

Density functional theory supports experimental results

Monolayer germanene can be fabricated on Ag2Ge alloy

Abstract

Two-dimensional (2D) Dirac materials have attracted intense research efforts due to their promise for applications ranging from field-effect transistors and low-power electronics to fault-tolerant quantum computation. One key challenge is to fabricate 2D Dirac materials hosting Dirac electrons. Here, monolayer germanene is successfully fabricated on a Ag2Ge surface alloy. Scanning tunneling spectroscopy measurements revealed a linear energy dispersion relation. The latter was supported by density functional theory calculations. These results demonstrate that monolayer germanene can be realistically fabricated on a Ag2Ge surface alloy. The finding opens the door to exploration and study of 2D Dirac material physics and device applications.