Electrical Transport Through Pelletized Tablet of Silicene-Like Quasi 2D Crystalline Silicon

Silicene, the silicon-based 2D analogue of graphene, is predicted to have many exotic properties. However, most of the theoretically predicted phenomena have not yet been experimentally verified. In this work, we have prepared silicene-like, quasi 2D nanostructures via topochemical exfoliation of layered silicide and hot-pressed the dried powders to form bulk pellets. Temperature dependent electrical transport characteristics of pelletized silicene were investigated and found to exhibit evidence of some theoretically predicted features. The current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of the pelletized samples are non-linear, asymmetric about V = 0 and bears clear signature of negative differential resistance (NDR). The heuristic study provides interesting insights into the transport properties of bulk pellets of silicene and opens up the possibility of many applications.