Prospects for experimental realization of two-dimensional aluminium allotropes

Abstract

Theory reveals how 2D aluminum could be synthesized.

Bonding, structure, and mechanical stability of 2D materials: the predictive power of the periodic table

“…27 According to MD simulations, this semiconducting polymorph is dynamically and thermodynamically stable up to about 800 K. Interestingly, the application of uniaxial or biaxial tensile strain closes the gap and transforms the system back to the metallic state, and the positive Poisson ratio becomes negative. 27 For aluminene, besides the planar honeycomb structure of aluminium, 28,29 a graphene-like buckled, 30 triangular, 29 and four-layer 8-Pmmn structure 31 have been proposed (see Table 1). Note that some of these phases have not yet been fully characterized and confirmed by other authors and some allotropic modifications may only be stable if the phonon dynamics is stabilized by the strain exerted by monolayer-substrate interaction.…”

Single-Element 2D Materials beyond Graphene: Methods of Epitaxial Synthesis

“…The distance between boron atoms in the borophene structure is about 0.17 nm [2,59]. Borophene, aluminene, gallenene, indiene, and thallene-representatives of group IIIA transgraphenes-can have various modifications of the crystal lattice [59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73].…”

Advances in photonics of recently developed Xenes

“…Thus, monolayer aluminene with different structures (e.g. planar, buckled, puckered, and triangular) might be probably derived from the bulk counterpart [64,70]. Based on theoretical calculations, Kamal et al first predicted that free-standing aluminene with the planar honeycomb form (space group P6/mmm) is geometrically stable ( Figure 2F) [64].…”

“…Its stability can be maintained under tensile strains up to 7%, but it is not stable under compressive strains. Owing to the strain effect, planar and buckled aluminene was recently reported to be stable on Cu (111) and graphene substrates based on theoretical investigations [70]. Aluminene allotropes can be preferentially grown on metallic substrates with low diffusion barrier, enabling the possibility of depositing atomically thin monolayer aluminene on appropriate surface for practical optoelectronic applications.…”