Low-dimensional boron: searching for Dirac materials

Abstract

Two-dimensional (2D) boron, as an analog of graphene, can serve as a building block for fullerenes, nanotubes, and nanoribbons. Understanding its structure and stability is a prerequisite for studies of all those boron nanostructures. Based on an ab initio evolutionary structure search, novel 2D boron structures with nonzero thickness were predicted. In particular, the formation of 2D Dirac boron was reviewed.