Silicene: Genesis, remarkable discoveries, and legacy
M. E. Dávila, G. Le Lay
Abstract
In the realm of two-dimensional (2D) materials, besides the ones initially peeled from lamellar crystals, the artificial emerging elemental ones, called Xenes, appear as strong contenders to graphene in a booming new field. The very first synthetic Xene was silicene, created in 2012. On the occasion of its tenth anniversary, this concise review, describes the birth of silicene, in situ, under ultra-high vacuum, and surveys its most tantalizing properties: its Dirac features, its 2D topological insulator character, its easy functionalization, its insertion as atom-thin channel in Field Effect Transistors operating at room temperature. Silicene has striking variants and amazing doubles in the quantum world; these lookalikes are briefly described and their origins discussed. We owe to silicene the legacy of all its descendants from borophene to tellurene, and fascinating prospects for spintronics, the emergence and control of Majorana fermions, possibly for quantum computing.