---

Nanoscale materials science has been dominated by graphene for the past ten years. The presentation will discuss the way forward by looking at a number of emerging novel materials that are expected to define the next decade of research in two-dimensional materials. The presentation will focus on two classes of semiconducting nanomaterials: hexagonal chalcogenides and silicene/germanene derivatives. Hexagonal gallium chalcogenides and indium chalcogenides are structurally quite similar to transition metal dichalcogenides while exhibiting very unique electronic properties. Their valence band will be discussed with emphasis on their use to engineer a very robust Lifshitz transition, and their optical properties will be examined to project their future use as UV photodetectors [1,2,3]. Silicane and germanane are fully hydrogenated covalent derivatives of silicene and germanene, respectively. Their stability will be discussed and their electronic structure presented. The talk will show that a tight-binding description of their valence and conduction bands requires the inclusion of second-nearest neighbor interaction and present a model with parameters obtained from first principles [4,5]. [1] Zólyomi, V.; Drummond, N. D.; Fal'ko, V. I.; Phys. Rev. B 87, 195403 (2013) [2] Liu, F. C.; Shimotani, H.; Shang, H.; Kanagasekaran, T.; Zólyomi, V.; Drummond, N. D.; Fal'ko, V. I.; Tanigaki, K.; ACS Nano 8, 752-760 (2014) [3] Zólyomi, V.; Drummond, N. D.; Fal'ko, V. I.; arXiv:1403.4389 [4] Drummond, N. D.; Zólyomi, V.; Fal'ko, V. I.; Phys. Rev. B 85, 075423 (2012) [5] Zólyomi, V.; Wallbank, J. R.; Fal'ko, V. I.; 2D Mater. 1, 011005 (2014)

---

Viktor Zolyomi, Lancaster University
Seminar Room of the Institute of Physics II
Contact: Alexander Grueneis