Multilayer silicene: structure, electronics, and mechanical property

Abstract

Herein, we performed first principle calculation and classical molecular dynamics simulation to study structural optimization, band structure, and mechanical properties of differently stacked multilayer silicene. Several local energy minima have been identified as metastable conformation with different stacking mode and layer number. Bandstructure of low buckled AA bilayer silicene optimized with SCAN+rvv10 presents semiconducting behavior with a bandgap of 0.4419ev. Young's modulus of multilayer silicene shows low dependency on layer number or stacking mode. Whereas, fracture stress and strain is sensitive to the number of layers, specific stacking mode, and chirality. Furthermore, bending modulus of multilayer silicene (e.g., 0.44ev for monolayer silicene) is even lower than that of graphene, which may attribute to the flexibility of bond angle.