Scalable Solution Phase Synthesis of 2D Siloxene via a Two-Step Interlayer Expansion Process

Abstract

Two-dimensional (2D) siloxene is attracting considerableresearchinterest recently principally owing to its inherent compatibilitywith silicon-based semiconductor technology. -The synthesis of siloxenehas been mostly limited to multilayered structures using traditional topochemical reaction procedures. Herein, we report high-yield synthesisof single to few-layer siloxene nanosheets by developing a two-stepinterlayer expansion and subsequent liquid phase exfoliation procedure.Our protocol enables high-yield production of few-layer siloxene nanosheetswith a lateral dimension of up to 4 & mu;m and thickness rangingfrom 0.8 to 4.8 nm, corresponding to single to a few layers, wellstabilized in water. The atomically flat nature of exfoliated siloxenecan be exploited for the construction of 2D/2D heterostructure membranes via typical solution processing. We demonstrate highly orderedgraphene/siloxene heterostructure films with synergistic mechanicaland electrical properties, which deliver noticeably high device capacitancewhen assembled into a coin cell symmetric supercapacitor device structures.Additionally, we demonstrate that the mechanically flexible exfoliatedsiloxene-graphene heterostructure enables its direct use in flexibleand wearable supercapacitor applications.