Bond-resolved silicene on Au(111) substrate

Silicene, a silicon analog of graphene, holds promise for next-generation electronics due to its tunable bandgap and larger spin–orbit coupling. Despite extensive efforts to synthesize and characterize silicene on metal substrates, bond-resolved imaging of its atomic structure has remained elusive. Here, we report the fabrication and bond-resolved characterization of silicene on Au(111) substrate. Three silicene phases tuned by surface reconstruction and annealing temperatures are achieved. Using CO-terminated scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) tips, we resolve these silicene phases with atomic precision, determining their bond lengths, local strain, and geometric configurations. Furthermore, we correlate these structural features with their electronic properties, revealing the effect of strain and substrate interactions on the electronic properties of silicene. This work establishes silicene’s intrinsic bonding topology and resolves longstanding controversies in silicene research.