CAJ #9 - Silicene

Silicene, an allotrope of silicon, was first created in 2010. It shares a lot of similarities with graphene. Both consist of a single layer of atoms, are strong, thin, flexible and very conductive. Graphene consists of carbon atoms and silicene of silicon atoms.

Silicene wires and sheets

Silicene could be of particular use in the semiconductor industry since this industry has already been using silicon for many years now. Also, it is easier to realize a so-called bandgap in silicene, which is a prerequisite for a transistor. Silicene could, just like graphene, be used in electronic devices. Furthermore, silicene could be used in the production of batteries. These would then have a longer life and would not continuously degenerate over time.

However, there is a catch to silicene. Researchers of the MESA+ Research Institute of the University of Twente recently succeeded in filming silicene directly and in real time. They let evaporated silicon atoms precipitate on a surface of silver, so that an almost closed, singular layer of silicene was formed. This showed that the material has suicidal tendencies.  As soon as a certain amount of silicon atoms fell on top of the silicene layer, a silicon crystal was formed. This crystal triggered the further crystallization of silicene. From that moment, the newly formed silicon began to “eat” the silicene.

This happens because the structure of regular silicon is more stable than that of silicene. This is the reason researchers could only cover 97% of the silver surface with silicene and could not create multi-layered silicene.  Unfortunately, this also means that it might not be possible to create multi-layered silicene on a different type of surface because they cannot even create a second layer of it.

XOXO A.