Band gap opening in bilayer silicene by alkali metal intercalation

Recently, bilayer and multilayer silicene have attracted increased attention following the boom of silicene, which holds great promise for future applications in microelectronic devices. Herein we systematically investigate all stacking configurations of bilayer silicene and the corresponding electronic properties. Strong coupling is found between two silicene layers, which destroys the Dirac cones in the band structures of pristine silicene and makes bilayer silicene sheets metallic. However, intercalation of alkali metal (especially potassium) can effectively decouple the interaction between two silicene layers. In the K-intercalated bilayer silicene (KSi4), the Dirac cones are recovered with a small band gap of 0.27 eV located about 0.55 eV below the Fermi level. Furthermore, intercalation of K+ cations in bilayer silicene (K+Si4) results in a semiconductor with a moderate band gap of 0.43 eV, making it ideal for microelectronic applications.