Structural and Electronic Properties of Germanene on MoS2

Abstract

To date germanene has only been synthesized on metallic substrates. A metallic substrate is usually detrimental for the two-dimensional Dirac nature of germanene because the important electronic states near the Fermi level of germanene can hybridize with the electronic states of the metallic substrate. Here we report the successful synthesis of germanene on molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), a band gap material. Preexisting defects in the MoS2 surface act as preferential nucleation sites for the germanene islands. The lattice constant of the germanene layer (3.8±0.2 Å) is about 20% larger than the lattice constant of the MoS2 substrate (3.16 Å). Scanning tunneling spectroscopy measurements and density functional theory calculations reveal that there are, besides the linearly dispersing bands at the K points, two parabolic bands that cross the Fermi level at the Γ point.