  In this paper, we report the direct chemical synthesis of silicon sheets in
gram-scale quantities by chemical exfoliation of pre-processed calcium
di-silicide (CaSi2). We have used a combination of X-ray photoelectron
spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy and Energy-dispersive X-ray
spectroscopy to characterize the obtained silicon sheets. We found that the
clean and crystalline silicon sheets show a 2-dimensional hexagonal graphitic
structure.
