Direct Evidence of Dirac Signature in Bilayer Germanene Islands on Cu(111)

Abstract

Bernal-stacked bilayer germanene with a stable buckled honeycomb structure has been successfully synthesized on Cu(111). Structural and electronic characterizations as well as theoretical calculations unequivocally demonstrate for the first time the presence of a nearly linear energy dispersion in the vicinity of the Fermi energy, as expected of the Dirac signature for theoretical freestanding germanene.

Keywords: Bernal stacking; bilayer; epitaxial growth; germanene; scanning tunneling microscopy.