A brief history of silicene

Abstract

Research on silicene shows a fast and steady growth that has increased our tool-box of novel 2D materials with exceptional potential applications in materials science. Especially after the experimental synthesis of silicene on substrates in 2012 it has attracted substantial interest from both theoretical and experimental communities. Every day, new people from various disciplines join this rapidly growing field. The aim of this book is to serve as a fast entry to the field to these newcomers and as a long-living reference to the growing community. To achieve this goal, the book is designed to emphasize the most crucial developments from both theoretical and experimental point of view since the starting of the silicene field back in 1994 with the first theoretical paper proposing the structure of silicene. We provide the general concepts and ideas such that the book is accessible to everybody from graduate students to senior researchers and we refer the reader interested in the detail to the relevant literature. We now start with a brief history of silicene where we highlight, in the chronological order, the important works that shaped our understanding of silicene.