Silicene, a monolayer of silicon atoms tightly packed into a two-dimensional honeycomb lattice, is the challenging hypothetical reflection in the silicon realm of graphene, a one-atom thick graphite sheet, presently the hottest material in condensed matter physics. If existing, it would also reveal a cornucopia of new physics and potential applications. Here, we reveal the epitaxial growth of silicene stripes self-aligned in a massively parallel array on the anisotropic silver (110) surface. This crucial step in the silicene gold rush could give a new kick to silicon on the electronics road-map and opens the most promising route towards wide-ranging applications. A hint of superconductivity in these silicene stripes poses intriguing questions related to the delicate interplay between paired correlated fermions, massless Dirac fermions and bosonic quasi-particules in low dimensions.
@article{arxiv.0811.2611,
title = {Physics of Silicene Stripes},
author = {A. Kara and C. Leandri and M. E. Davila and P. de Padova and B. Ealet and H. Oughaddou and B. Aufray and G. Le Lay},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0811.2611},
year = {2008}
}