  Recently, silicene, the graphene equivalent of silicon, has attracted a lot
of attention due to its compatibility with Si-based electronics. So far,
silicene has been epitaxy grown on various crystalline surfaces such as
Ag(110), Ag(111), Ir(111), ZrB2(0001) and Au(110) substrates. Here, we present
a new method to grow silicene via high temperature surface reconstruction of
hexagonal IrSi3 nanocrystals. The h-IrSi3 nanocrystals are formed by annealing
thin Ir layers on Si(111) surface. A detailed analysis of the STM images shows
the formation of silicene like domains on the surface of some of the IrSi3
crystallites. We studied both morphology and electronic properties of these
domains by using both scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy and
first-principles calculation methods.
