Epitaxial growth of highly strained antimonene on Ag(111)

• Published in: Frontiers of physics Vol. 13; no. 3; p. 138106
• Main Authors: Mao, Ya-Hui, Zhang, Li-Fu, Wang, Hui-Li, Shan, Huan, Zhai, Xiao-Fang, Hu, Zhen-Peng, Zhao, Ai-Di, Wang, Bing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Beijing Higher Education Press 01.06.2018; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: antimonene; Astronomy; Astrophysics and Cosmology; Atomic; Condensed Matter Physics; density functional theory; Epitaxial growth; Honeycomb structures; Inorganic Two-Dimensional Nanomaterials; Lattice parameters; Molecular; Molecular beam epitaxy; Optical and Plasma Physics; Particle and Nuclear Physics; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Research Article; scanning tunneling microscope; Scanning tunneling microscopy; Silver; Substrates; Surface alloying; Tensile strain; Thin films; Two dimensional materials; antimonene; scanning tunneling microscope; density functional theory
• ISSN: 2095-0462; 2095-0470
• DOI: 10.1007/s11467-018-0757-3

The synthesis of antimonene, which is a promising group-V 2D material for both fundamental studies and technological applications, remains highly challenging. Thus far, it has been synthesized only by exfoliation or growth on a few substrates. In this study, we show that thin layers of antimonene can be grown on Ag(111) by molecular beam epitaxy. High-resolution scanning tunneling microscopy combined with theoretical calculations revealed that the submonolayer Sb deposited on a Ag(111) surface forms a layer of AgSb 2 surface alloy upon annealing. Further deposition of Sb on the AgSb 2 surface alloy causes an epitaxial layer of Sb to form, which is identified as antimonene with a buckled honeycomb structure. More interestingly, the lattice constant of the epitaxial antimonene (5 Å) is much larger than that of freestanding antimonene, indicating a high tensile strain of more than 20%. This kind of large strain is expected to make the antimonene a highly promising candidate for roomtemperature quantum spin Hall material.