The Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (stichting voor Fundamenteel Onderzoek der Materie, FOM) has awarded the FOM projectruimte proposal ‘Living at the edge: Quantum spin Hall effect in germanene’ from Harold Zandvliet. The 2D material germanene will be scrutinized. Germanene is the germanium analogue of graphene. In contrast to graphene, germanene doesn’t occur in nature, and therefore it has to be synthesized. Germanene shares the exotic properties of graphene: the electrons behave as massless relativistic particles, described by the relativistic Dirac equation, the relativistic equivalent of the Schrödinger equation. Germanene was synthesized in the PIN group as early as 2014. It is a 2-dimensional topological insulator: the interior of the germanene layer acts as an isolator, while the edges exhibit a metallic character.
