Electronic and structural properties of epitaxial silicene on h-BN-terminated ZrB$_{\mathrm{2}}$

Silicene is a two-dimensional (2D) material consisting of an atomically buckled honeycomb lattice of Si atoms. Its attractive predicted properties include an electrically tunable bandgap and the quantum spin Hall effect. Free-standing silicene has not been synthesized to date, but epitaxial silicene layers have been reported on a number of metallic substrates, amongst which ZrB$_{\mathrm{2}}$(0001) thin films on Si(111) [1]. These substrates have a non-negligible effect on the electronic properties of the silicene due to hybridization effects. We have investigated epitaxial silicene on ZrB$_{\mathrm{2}}$(0001) surfaces terminated with an insulating, epitaxial h-BN monolayer [2]. I will discuss the electronic and structural properties of such silicene layers, based on synchrotron-based (angle-resolved) photoelectron spectroscopy and scanning tunneling microscopy studies. [1] A. Fleurence, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 245501 (2012) [2] K. Aoyagi, et al., to be submitted.