Epitaxial growth of honeycomb-like stanene on Au(111)

Stanene, which is predicted to be a quantum spin Hall topological insulator with tunable topological state, seems to be the most promising candidate of the post-graphene elemental two-dimensional (2D) materials. Here, we prepared epitaxial honeycomb-like stanene on gold (111) substrates and investigated its superstructure by Low Energy Electron Diffraction and Scanning Tunneling Microscopy. Angle-Resolved PhotoEmission Spectroscopy was applied to explore the electronic structures, further confirmed by first principles calculations. The stanene-like sheet forms a nearly planar structure on the Au(111) surface with a "2×√3" superstructure in large surface areas. Core-level spectroscopy reveals that the stanene-like sheet lays almost directly on the Au(111) surface. This is consistent with DFT calculations of the atomic structure. A characteristic 2D band with parabolic dispersion is observed.