Issue 20, 2016

Thermal exfoliation of stoichiometric single-layer silica from the stishovite phase: insight from first-principles calculations

Abstract

Mechanical cleavage, chemical intercalation and chemical vapor deposition are the main methods that are currently used to synthesize nanosheets or monolayers. Here, we propose a new strategy, thermal exfoliation for the fabrication of silica monolayers. Using a variety of state-of-the-art theoretical calculations we show that a stoichiometric single-layer silica with a tetragonal lattice, T-silica, can be thermally exfoliated from the stishovite phase in a clean environment at room temperature. The resulting single-layer silica is dynamically, thermally, and mechanically stable with exceptional properties, including a large band gap of 7.2 eV, an unusual negative Poisson's ratio, a giant Stark effect, and a high breakdown voltage. Moreover, other analogous structures like single-layer GeO2 can also be obtained by thermal exfoliation of its bulk phase. Our findings are expected to motivate experimental efforts on developing new techniques for the synthesis of monolayer materials.

Graphical abstract: Thermal exfoliation of stoichiometric single-layer silica from the stishovite phase: insight from first-principles calculations

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
01 Oct 2015
Accepted
17 Dec 2015
First published
22 Dec 2015

Nanoscale, 2016,8, 10598-10606

Thermal exfoliation of stoichiometric single-layer silica from the stishovite phase: insight from first-principles calculations

Y. Guo, S. Zhang, T. Zhao and Q. Wang, Nanoscale, 2016, 8, 10598 DOI: 10.1039/C5NR06788J

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements