  Silicene, a monolayer of silicon atoms tightly packed into a two-dimensional
honeycomb lattice, is the challenging hypothetical reflection in the silicon
realm of graphene, a one-atom thick graphite sheet, presently the hottest
material in condensed matter physics. If existing, it would also reveal a
cornucopia of new physics and potential applications. Here, we reveal the
epitaxial growth of silicene stripes self-aligned in a massively parallel array
on the anisotropic silver (110) surface. This crucial step in the silicene gold
rush could give a new kick to silicon on the electronics road-map and opens the
most promising route towards wide-ranging applications. A hint of
superconductivity in these silicene stripes poses intriguing questions related
to the delicate interplay between paired correlated fermions, massless Dirac
fermions and bosonic quasi-particules in low dimensions.
