Stability and electronic properties of two-dimensional silicene and germanene on graphene

We present first-principles calculations of silicene/graphene and germanene/graphene bilayers. Various supercell models are constructed in the calculations in order to reduce the strain of the lattice-mismatched bilayer systems. Our energetics analysis and electronic structure results suggest that graphene can be used as a substrate to synthesize monolayer silicene and germanene. Multiple phases of single crystalline silicene and germanene with different orientations relative to the substrate could coexist at room temperature. The weak interaction between the overlayer and the substrate preserves the low-buckled structure of silicene and germanene, as well as their linear energy bands. The gap induced by breaking the sublattice symmetry in silicene on graphene can be up to 57 meV.