Abstract
Following the first experimental realization of graphene, other ultrathin materials with unprecedented electronic properties have been explored, with particular attention given to the heavy group-IV elements Si, Ge and Sn. Two-dimensional buckled Si-based silicene has been recently realized by molecular beam epitaxy growth, whereas Ge-based germanene was obtained by molecular beam epitaxy and mechanical exfoliation. However, the synthesis of Sn-based stanene has proved challenging so far. Here, we report the successful fabrication of 2D stanene by molecular beam epitaxy, confirmed by atomic and electronic characterization using scanning tunnelling microscopy and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, in combination with first-principles calculations. The synthesis of stanene and its derivatives will stimulate further experimental investigation of their theoretically predicted properties, such as a 2D topological insulating behaviour with a very large bandgap, and the capability to support enhanced thermoelectric performance, topological superconductivity and the near-room-temperature quantum anomalous Hall effect.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$259.00 per year
only $21.58 per issue
Rent or buy this article
Prices vary by article type
from$1.95
to$39.95
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Lebègue, S., Björkman, T., Klintenberg, M., Nieminen, R. M. & Eriksson, O. Two-dimensional materials from data filtering and ab initio calculations. Phys. Rev. X 3, 031002 (2013).
Xu, Y. et al. Large-gap quantum spin Hall insulators in tin films. Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 136804 (2013).
Liu, C. C., Jiang, H. & Yao, Y. Low-energy effective Hamiltonian involving spin-orbit coupling in silicene and two-dimensional germanium and tin. Phys. Rev. B 84, 195430 (2011).
Zhang, G. F., Li, Y. & Wu, C. J. Honeycomb lattice with multiorbital structure: Topological and quantum anomalous Hall insulators with large gaps. Phys. Rev. B 90, 075114 (2014).
Xu, Y., Gan, Z. & Zhang, S. C. Enhanced thermoelectric performance and anomalous Seebeck effects in topological insulators. Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 226801 (2014).
Wang, J., Xu, Y. & Zhang, S. C. Two-dimensional time-reversal-invariant topological superconductivity in a doped quantum spin-Hall insulator. Phys. Rev. B 90, 054503 (2014).
Wu, S. C., Shan, G. & Yan, B. H. Prediction of near-room-temperature quantum anomalous Hall effect on honeycomb materials. Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 256401 (2014).
Vogt, P. et al. Silicene: Compelling experimental evidence for graphene like two-dimensional silicon. Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 155501 (2012).
Liu, Z. L. et al. Various atomic structures of monolayer silicene fabricated on Ag(111). New J. Phys. 16, 075006 (2014).
Dàvilla, M. E., Xian, L., Cahangirov, S., Rubio, A. & Lay, G. L. Germanene: A novel two-dimensional germanium allotrope akin to graphene and silicene. New J. Phys. 16, 095002 (2014).
Bianco, E. et al. Stability and exfoliation of germanane: A germanium graphane analogue. ACS Nano 7, 4414–4421 (2013).
Jiang, S. et al. Improving the stability and optical properties of germanane via one-step covalent methyl-termination. Nature Commun. 5, 3389 (2014).
Osaka, T., Omi, H., Yamamoto, K. & Ohtake, A. Surface phase transition and interface interaction in the α-Sn/InSb (111) system. Phys. Rev. B 50, 7567–7572 (1994).
Eguchi, T., Nakamura, J. & Osaka, T. Structure and electronic states of the α-Sn(111)-(2 × 2) surface. J. Phys. Soc. Jpn 67, 381–384 (1998).
Barfuss, A. et al. Elemental topological insulator with tunable Fermi level: Strained α-Sn on InSb(001). Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 157205 (2013).
Ohtsubo, Y., Fèvre, P. L., Bertran, F. & Taleb-Ibrahimi, A. Dirac cone with helical spin polarization in ultrathin α-Sn(001) films. Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 216401 (2013).
Wang, L. L. et al. Epitaxial growth and quantum well states study of Sn thin films on Sn induced Si(111)-(2R3x2R3) R30° surface. Phys. Rev. B 77, 205410 (2008).
Yan, C. H. et al. Experimental observation of Dirac-like surface states and topological phase transition in Pb1−xSnxTe(111) films. Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 186801 (2014).
Damascelli, A., Hussain, Z. & Shen, Z. X. Angle-resolved photoemission studies of the cuprate superconductors. Rev. Mod. Phys. 75, 473–540 (2003).
Hsieh, D. et al. Observation of time-reversal-protected single-Dirac-cone topological-insulator states in Bi2Te3 and Sb2Te3 . Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 146401 (2009).
Chen, Y. L. et al. Experimental realization of a three-dimensional topological insulator, Bi2Te3 . Science 325, 178–181 (2009).
Li, Y. Y. et al. Intrinsic topological insulator Bi2Te3 thin films on Si and their thickness limit. Adv. Mater. 22, 4002–4007 (2010).
Zhang, H. J. et al. Topological insulators in Bi2Se3, Bi2Te3 and Sb2Te3 with a single Dirac cone on the surface. Nature Phys. 5, 438–442 (2009).
Michiardi, M. et al. Bulk band structure of Bi2Te3 . Phys. Rev. B 90, 075105 (2014).
Tang, P. et al. Stable two-dimensional dumbbell stanene: A quantum spin Hall insulator. Phys. Rev. B 90, 121408(R) (2014).
Chou, B.-H. et al. Hydrogenated ultra-thin tin films predicted as two-dimensional topological insulators. New J. Phys. 16, 115008 (2014).
Acknowledgements
The work in SJTU was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (Grant Nos 2013CB921902, 2012CB927401, 2011CB922202), NSFC (Grant Nos 11227404, 11274228, 11174199, 11374206, 11134008, 91421312, 91221302) and Shanghai Committee of Science and Technology, China (Grant Nos 12JC1405300, 13QH1401500). The work in Stanford is supported by the NSF under grant number DMR-1305677 and by FAME, one of six centres of STARnet, a Semiconductor Research Corporation programme sponsored by MARCO and DARPA. D.Q. acknowledges support from the Top-notch Young Talents Program and the Program for Professor of Special Appointment (Eastern Scholar) at Shanghai Institutions of Higher Learning. C.-l.G. acknowledges support from the Shu Guang project by the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission and Shanghai Education Development Foundation. D.-d.G. acknowledges support from the Open Research Fund Program of the State Key Laboratory of Low-Dimensional Quantum Physics (Grant No. KF201310) and Shanghai Pujiang Program (Grant No. 14PJ1404600). The Advanced Light Source is supported by the Director, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the US Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC02-05CH11231. The work is also supported by ENN.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
F.-f.Z. and W.-j.C. conducted the experiments with the help of D.Q. and C.-l.G. Y.X. conducted the calculations. D.Q., Y.X., S.-C.Z. and J.-f.J. designed the experiments and provided financial and other support for the experiments and calculations. D.Q., C.-l.G., Y.X., D.-d.G., C.-h.L. and J.-f.J. analysed the data. D.Q., Y.X. and J.-f.J. wrote the paper.
Corresponding authors
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Supplementary Information (PDF 656 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zhu, Ff., Chen, Wj., Xu, Y. et al. Epitaxial growth of two-dimensional stanene. Nature Mater 14, 1020–1025 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4384
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4384
This article is cited by
-
Dual quantum spin Hall insulator by density-tuned correlations in TaIrTe4
Nature (2024)
-
Realization of large-area ultraflat chiral blue phosphorene
Nature Communications (2024)
-
Effect of shear strain on the electronic and optical properties of Al-doped stanane
Journal of Molecular Modeling (2024)
-
Simulation of magnetization plateaus of stanene-like nanostructures at low temperatures
Indian Journal of Physics (2024)
-
Modulation of antichiral edge states in zigzag honeycomb nanoribbons by side potentials
Communications Physics (2023)