Plumbene is a material made up of a single layer of

lead Lead () is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...

atoms. The material is created in a process similar to that of

graphene Graphene () is a carbon allotrope consisting of a Single-layer materials, single layer of atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice, honeycomb planar nanostructure. The name "graphene" is derived from "graphite" and the suffix -ene, indicating ...

silicene Silicene is a two-dimensional allotrope of silicon, with a hexagonal honeycomb structure similar to that of graphene. Contrary to graphene, silicene is not flat, but has a periodically buckled topology; the coupling between layers in silicene is ...

germanene Germanene is a material made up of a single layer of germanium atoms. The material is created in a process similar to that of silicene and graphene, in which high vacuum and high temperature are used to deposit a layer of germanium atoms on a su ...

, and

stanene Stanene is a topological insulator, theoretically predicted by Shoucheng Zhang's group at Stanford, which may display dissipationless currents at its edges near room temperature. It is composed of tin atoms arranged in a single layer, in a manne ...

, 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 scientists, 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 Molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) is an epitaxy method for thin-film deposition of single crystals. MBE is widely used in the manufacture of semiconductor devices, including transistors. MBE is used to make diodes and MOSFETs (MOS field-effect transis ...

with a segregation method upon a

palladium Palladium is a chemical element; it has symbol Pd and atomic number 46. It is a rare and lustrous silvery-white metal discovered in 1802 by the English chemist William Hyde Wollaston. He named it after the asteroid Pallas (formally 2 Pallas), ...

surface in a

crystal lattice In crystallography, crystal structure is a description of ordered arrangement of atoms, ions, or molecules in a crystal, crystalline material. Ordered structures occur from intrinsic nature of constituent particles to form symmetric patterns that ...

with

Miller indices Miller indices form a notation system in crystallography for lattice planes in crystal (Bravais) lattices. In particular, a family of lattice planes of a given (direct) Bravais lattice is determined by three integers ''h'', ''k'', and ''� ...

(111). The structure was confirmed with

scanning tunneling microscopy A scanning tunneling microscope (STM) is a type of scanning probe microscope used for imaging surfaces at the atomic level. Its development in 1981 earned its inventors, Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, then at IBM Zürich, the Nobel Prize in ...

(STM) revealing a nearly flat honeycomb structure. 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.

Properties

Plumbene's electronic and optical properties have been determined from ''

ab initio ( ) is a Latin term meaning "from the beginning" and is derived from the Latin ("from") + , ablative singular of ("beginning"). Etymology , from Latin, literally "from the beginning", from ablative case of "entrance", "beginning", related t ...

'' calculations, indicating a band gap of 0.4 eV.

References

{{reflist Lead Two-dimensional nanomaterials