3rd International Meeting on Silicene (IMS-3)

Abstract

Silicene, the new supernova material

Silicon is formed in a large amount during supernova nucleo-synthesis and it is the 8th most common chemical element in the universe.

Today modern electronics make large use of bulk silicon, which has consequently an extremely large impact on the world industry and economy. The need for more powerful, faster and less energy-consuming integrated circuits requires in the future the use of nanotechnologies. The ultimate step concerning silicon is silicene (the 2D silicon-based analogue of graphene). This material is of paramount importance as it requires the use of the same technologies and production lines as silicon.

Even if theoreticians had predicted its possible existence, it is only in 2010 that a team of pioneers from CINAM-France, ISMO-France and UCF-USA has presented for the first time the experimental evidence of the formation of silicene. Since then research is exploding (like a supernova!) both on the experimental and theoretical sides, with the main aim of replacing bulk silicon with this potentially revolutionary material. However, before any possible industrial use, it has first to be prepared or synthesized in various stripe and sheet shapes on insulating surfaces on which its physical and chemical properties have to be analyzed in detail. A second step is its chemical functionalization through various dopants to achieve different tasks, expected or not yet imagined.

Chemists and physicists, experimentalists and theoreticians are involved in this thrilling work. A wide array of techniques, from the subtle chemistry reaction networks, to all those of experimental surface science (from synchrotron radiation to scanning tunneling microscopy) as well as those of theoretical chemistry (from {\it ab initio} to density functional theory calculations) are involved.

Big progress has been made since 2010 and the success of this third International Meeting on Silicene (IMS-3) is demonstrated by the present proceedings.

Historical summary

Every two years, the STARM (science, technologie avanc\'ee et recherche pour la Mediterran\'ee, http://www.starm.emcmre.org/) society is organizing an international conference entitled Euro-Mediterranean Conference on Materials and Renewable Energies (EMCMRE, http://www.emcmre.org/) in countries across the Mediterranean Sea.

It is in this framework that an international meeting dedicated to silicene is organized simultaneously since 2010:
1st International Meeting of Silicene (IMS-1), Safi, Morocco, 2010
2nd International Meeting of Silicene (IMS-2), Marrakech, Morocco, 2011
3rd International Meeting of Silicene (IMS-3), Istres-Marseille, France, 2013

Conference pictures are available in the PDF