7. Properties of Monolayer Silicene on Ag(111)

The expected properties of silicene and their theoretical background have already been discussed in Chaps. 1–3 and the different ways to synthesize this new 2D material in Chap. 5. It has already been mentioned that such a synthesis requires an adequate substrate material to accommodate the formation of a one-atom-thin silicon layer. Such a material is silver, in particular the Ag(111) surface plane. In this chapter the formation and properties of silicene formed epitaxially on the Ag(111)(\(1\times 1\)) surface are discussed. We will see that the properties of these silicene layers are modified with respect to the ones of free-standing silicene, due to the interaction with the substrate. For this reason we will refer to it as epitaxial silicene and look in detail at its two-dimensional (2D) character. A more detailed look at the formation of Si layers on Ag(111) shows that, depending on the specific preparation conditions, several 2D Si phase can be formed. Differences and similarities of these structures will be discussed. Furthermore, we will draw the intention on the chemical and temperature stability of these epitaxial silicene layers and unveil the limits for the silicene formation.