Stabilizing monolayer nitrides with silicon
In a new report published in Science, Yi-Lun Hong and a group of research scientists in materials science, engineering, and advanced technology in China and the U.K. investigated two-dimensional (2-D) materials to discover new phenomena and unusual properties. The team introduced elemental silicon during chemical vapor deposition-based growth of molybdenum nitride to passivate its surface and develop centimeter-scale, monolayer nitride films with silicon such as MoSi2N4. They built the monolayer film with seven atomic layers in the order of nitrogen-silicon-nitrogen-molybdenum-nitrogen-silicon-nitrogen (N-Si-N-Mo-N-Si-N), and the resulting material showed semiconducting behavior and excellent stability under ambient conditions. Using density functional theory (DFT) calculations, the scientists predicted a large family of such monolayer structured 2-D materials to exist with useful applications as semiconductors, metals and magnetic half-metals.