Substrate-induced symmetry breaking in silicene

We demonstrate that silicene, a 2D honeycomb lattice consisting of Si atoms, loses its Dirac fermion characteristics due to substrate-induced symmetry breaking when synthesized on the Ag(111) surface. No Landau level sequences appear in the tunneling spectra under a magnetic field, and density funct...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPhysical review letters Vol. 110; no. 7; p. 076801
Main Authors Lin, Chun-Liang, Arafune, Ryuichi, Kawahara, Kazuaki, Kanno, Mao, Tsukahara, Noriyuki, Minamitani, Emi, Kim, Yousoo, Kawai, Maki, Takagi, Noriaki
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 11.02.2013
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Summary:We demonstrate that silicene, a 2D honeycomb lattice consisting of Si atoms, loses its Dirac fermion characteristics due to substrate-induced symmetry breaking when synthesized on the Ag(111) surface. No Landau level sequences appear in the tunneling spectra under a magnetic field, and density functional theory calculations show that the band structure is drastically modified by the hybridization between the Si and Ag atoms. This is the first direct example demonstrating the lack of Dirac fermions in a single layer honeycomb lattice due to significant symmetry breaking.
ISSN:1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/physrevlett.110.076801