2D Honeycomb Silicon: A Review on Theoretical Advances for Silicene Field-Effect Transistors

Catalysed by the success of mechanical exfoliated free-standing graphene, two dimensional (2D) semiconductor materials are successively an active area of research. Silicene is a monolayer of silicon (Si) atoms with a low-buckled honeycomb lattice possessing a Dirac cone and massless fermions in the band structure. Another advantage of silicene is its compatibility with the Silicon wafer fabrication technology. To effectively apply this 2D material in the semiconductor industry, it is important to carry out theoretical studies before proceeding to the next step. In this paper, an overview of silicene and silicene nanoribbons (SiNRs) is described. After that, the theoretical studies to engineer the bandgap of silicene are reviewed. Recent theoretical advancement on the applications of silicene for various field-effect transistor (FET) structures is also discussed. Theoretical studies of silicene have shown promising results for their application as FETs and the efforts to study the performance of bandgap-engineered silicene FET should continue to improve the device performance.