Properties of Two-Dimensional Silicon versus Carbon Systems

The discovery of graphene and exciting physics associated with graphene led to an immense interest in graphene-like structure made up of silicon: silicene, from both fundamental and application points of view. The charge carriers in this two-dimensional material, as in graphene, behave like massless Dirac-Fermions due to the presence of linear dispersion around the Fermi level at the highly symmetric “K” point in reciprocal lattice. Interestingly, silicon-based nanostructures have an important advantage over graphene as they are expected to be more compatible with the existing semiconductor technology.