| Popis: |
In the last years, “the growth and properties of silicene” has become one of the hottest research front in Physics and the first in Condensed Matter Physics. In this chapter, we describe the discovery of silicene, its outstanding properties, its amazingly fast development, and the birth of its column IV brothers, germanene and stanene. We further present the fascinating perspectives offered in fundamental research and in applications by these novel elemental two-dimensional materials, which have been created by scientists in the laboratory, since, at variance with graphene, which descents from graphite, they have no layered parent crystal in nature. |
