Recent Advances in Tin: From Two-Dimensional Quantum Spin Hall Insulator to Bulk Dirac Semimetal

An atomic layer of tin in a buckled honeycomb lattice, termed stanene, is a promising large-gap two-dimensional topological insulator for realizing room-temperature quantum-spin-Hall effect and therefore has drawn tremendous interest in recent years. Because the electronic structures of Sn allotropes are sensitive to lattice strain, e.g. the semimetallic alpha-phase of Sn can transform into a three-dimensional topological Dirac semimetal under compressive strain, recent experimental advances have demonstrated that stanene layers on different substrates can also host various electronic properties relating to in-plane strain, interfacial charge transfer, layer thickness, and so on. Thus, comprehensive understanding of the growth mechanism at the atomic scale is highly desirable for precise control of such tunable properties. Herein, the fundamental properties of stanene and alpha-Sn films, recent achievements in epitaxial growth, challenges in high-quality synthesis, and possible applications of stanene are discussed.