2014/06/10 by M. E. Dávila, Lede Xian, L. Xian +5 · 15 citations
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Condensed matter physics #Crystallography #Density functional theory #Epitaxy #Germanene #Germanium #Graphene #Graphene research and applications #Layer (electronics) #Materials science #Molecular beam epitaxy #Nanotechnology #Optics #Optoelectronics #Physics #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Quantum mechanics #Scanning tunneling microscope #Silicene #Silicon #Substrate (aquarium) #Superlattice #Synchrotron radiation #Topological Materials and Phenomena #cond-mat.mtrl-sci
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1367-2630/16/9/095002
16 pages, 4 figures, 1 table
arxiv created 2014/06/10 · openalex publication_date 2014/09/09 · arxiv updated 2015/06/19 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We have grown an atom-thin, ordered, two-dimensional multi-phase film in situ through germanium molecular beam epitaxy using a gold (111) surface as a substrate. Its growth is similar to the formation of silicene layers on silver (111) templates. One of the phases, forming large domains, as observed in scanning tunneling microscopy, shows a clear, nearly flat, honeycomb structure. Thanks to thorough synchrotron radiation core-level spectroscopy measurements and advanced density functional theory calculations we can identify it as a √3 × √3 R (30°) germanene layer in conjunction with a √7 × √7 R (19.1°) Au(111) supercell, presenting compelling evidence of the synthesis of the germanium-based cousin of graphene on gold.