Plumbene
Plumbene is a material made up of a single layer of lead atoms.[1][2][3] The material is created in a process similar to that of graphene, silicene, germanene, and stanene, in which high vacuum and high temperature are used to deposit a layer of lead atoms on a substrate. High-quality thin films of plumbene have revealed two-dimensional honeycomb structures. First researched by Indian professors, further investigations are being done around the world.
Preparation and structure
In April 2019, J. Yuhara and others reported the deposition of a single atom thickness by molecular beam epitaxy with a segregation method upon a palladium surface in a crystal lattice with Miller indices (111). The structure was confirmed with scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) revealing a nearly flat honeycomb structure.[4] There is no evidence of any three-dimensional islands, but one notices a unique nanostructured tessellation all over the terraces looking like a space-filling polyhedral foam reduced to dimension 2. Their appearance reminds you of the famous Weaire-Phelan bubble structure[5] of the envelope of the Beijing Olympics’ “WaterCube”.[6]
Properties
Plumbene's electronic and optical properties have been determined from ab initio calculations, indicating a band gap of 0.4 eV [7][8]
References
- Das, Dhiman Kumar; Sarkar, Jit; Singh, S. K. (2018-08-01). "Effect of sample size, temperature and strain velocity on mechanical properties of plumbene by tensile loading along longitudinal direction: A molecular dynamics study". Computational Materials Science. 151: 196–203. doi:10.1016/j.commatsci.2018.05.006.
- Wang, Pei-ji; Ping Li; Zhang, Bao-min; Yan, Shi-shen; Sheng-shi Li; Zhang, Run-wu; Ji, Wei-xiao; Yan, Shi-shen; Zhang, Chang-wen (2016-02-02). "Unexpected Giant-Gap Quantum Spin Hall Insulator in Chemically Decorated Plumbene Monolayer". Scientific Reports. Nature. 6: 20152. Bibcode:2016NatSR...620152Z. doi:10.1038/srep20152. PMC 4735859. PMID 26833133.
- "Discovery of a new quantum spin Hall phase in bilayer plumbene /Request PDF". ResearchGate. ResearchGate. Retrieved 2019-05-26.
- Yuhara, J.; He, B.; Le Lay, G. (2019). "Graphene's Latest Cousin: Plumbene Epitaxial Growth on a "Nano WaterCube"". Advanced Materials. 31: 1901017. doi:10.1002/adma.201901017. PMID 31074927.
- Weaire, D.; Phelan, R. (1994), "A counter-example to Kelvin's conjecture on minimal surfaces", Philosophical Magazine Letters, 69 (2): 107–110, Bibcode:1994PMagL..69..107W, doi:10.1080/09500839408241577
- "WaterCube English".
- Yu, X.-L.; Huang, L.; Wu, J. (2017), "From a normal insulator to a topological insulator in plumbene", Physical Review B, 95 (12): 125113, arXiv:1702.07447, Bibcode:2017PhRvB..95l5113Y, doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.95.125113
- Das, D. K.; Sarkar, J.; Singh, S. K. (2018), "Effect of sample size, temperature and strain velocity on mechanical properties of plumbene by tensile loading along longitudinal direction: A molecular dynamics study", Computational Materials Science, 151: 196–203, doi:10.1016/j.commatsci.2018.05.006