title: Silicon Nanosheets: Crossover between Multilayer Silicene and Diamond-like Growth Regime.
abstract: The structural and electronic properties of nanoscale Si epitaxially grown on Ag(111) can be tuned from a multilayer silicene phase, where the constitutive layers incorporate a mixed sp2/sp3bonding, to other ordinary Si phases, such as amorphous and diamond-like Si. Based on comparative scanning tunneling microscopy and Raman spectroscopy investigations, a key role in determining the nanoscale Si phase is played by the growth temperature of the epitaxial deposition on Ag(111) substrate and the presence or absence of a single-layer silicene as a seed for the successive growth. Furthermore, when integrated into a field-effect transistor device, multilayer silicene exhibits a characteristic ambipolar charge carrier transport behavior that makes it strikingly different from other conventional Si channels and suggestive of a Dirac-like character of the electronic bands of the crystal. These findings spotlight the interest in multilayer silicene as a different nanoscale Si phase for advanced nanotechnology applications such as ultrascaled nanoelectronics and nanomembranes, as well as for fundamental exploration of quantum properties.
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio MDM, IMM-CNR , via C. Olivetti 2, Agrate Brianza I-20864, Italy.
authors.forename: Carlo
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-0060-9804
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Grazianetti
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio MDM, IMM-CNR , via C. Olivetti 2, Agrate Brianza I-20864, Italy.
authors.forename: Eugenio
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Cinquanta
authors.affiliation: Microelectronics Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin , Austin, Texas 78758, United States.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Tao
authors.affiliation: ISM-CNR , via Fosso del Cavaliere 100, Roma I-00133, Italy.
authors.forename: Paola
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: De Padova
authors.affiliation: ISM-CNR , via Fosso del Cavaliere 100, Roma I-00133, Italy.
authors.forename: Claudio
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Quaresima
authors.affiliation: ISM-CNR , via Fosso del Cavaliere 100, Roma I-00133, Italy.
authors.forename: Carlo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ottaviani
authors.affiliation: Microelectronics Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin , Austin, Texas 78758, United States.
authors.forename: Deji
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Akinwande
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio MDM, IMM-CNR , via C. Olivetti 2, Agrate Brianza I-20864, Italy.
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-3860-4120
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Molle
keywords: Raman; STM; ambipolar carrier transport; multilayer silicene; transistor