Silicene: an excellent material for flexible electronics

Abstract

Abstract The outstanding properties of graphene have laid the foundation for exploring graphene-like 2D systems, commonly referred to as 2D-Xenes. Among them, silicene is a front-runner due to its compatibility with current silicon fabrication technologies. Recent works on silicene have unveiled its useful electronic and mechanical properties. The rapid miniaturization of silicon devices and the useful electro-mechanical properties of silicene necessitate the exploration of potential applications of silicene flexible electronics in nano electro-mechanical systems. Using a theoretical model derived from the integration of ab initio density-functional theory and quantum transport theory, we investigate the piezoresistance effect of silicene in the nanoscale regime. As with graphene, we obtain a small value of the piezoresistance gauge factor (GF) of silicene, which is sinusoidally dependent on the transport angle. The small GF of silicene is attributed to its robust Dirac cone and strain-independent valley degeneracy. Based on the obtained results, we propose to use silicene as an interconnect in flexible electronic devices and as a reference piezoresistor in strain sensors. This work will hence pave the way for exploring flexible electronics applications in other 2D-Xene materials.