Electronic properties of silicene in BN/silicene van der Waals heterostructures

Silicene is a promising 2D Dirac material as building block for van der Waals heterostructures (vdWHs). Here we investigate the electronic properties of hexagonal boron nitride/silicene (BN/Si) vdWHs using first-principles calculations. We calculate energy band structures BN/Si/BN with different rotation angles and find that silicene are retained protected robustly by BN layers. In BN/Si/BN/Si/BN heterostructure, structure near Fermi sensitive to stacking configurations layers due interlayer coupling. The coupling reduced increasing number between becomes negligible in BN/Si/(BN)3/Si/BN. (BN)n/Si superlattices, undergoes conversion from lines points Calculations sandwiched other materials reveal low-carbon-doped nitride or HfO2 semiconducting.