Growth of bilayer stanene on a magnetic topological insulator aided by a buffer layer

Stanene, a two-dimensional counterpart to graphene, has the potential to exhibit novel quantum phenomena when grown on a magnetic topological insulator (MTI). This work demonstrates the formation of up to bilayer stanene on 30% Sb-doped MnBi2Te4 (MBST), a well-known MTI, albeit with a buffer layer (BL) in between. Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), when combined with density functional theory (DFT), reveals stanene-related bands such as two holelike bands and an inverted parabolic band around the Γ¯ point. An outer holelike band traverses the Fermi level (EF) and gives rise to a hexagonal Fermi surface, showing that stanene on MBST is metallic. In contrast, a band gap of 0.8 eV is observed at the K̄ point. We find that DFT shows good agreement with ARPES only when the BL and hydrogen passivation of the top Sn layer are considered in the calculation. Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) establishes the honeycomb buckled structure of stanene. A stanene-related component is also detected in the Sn d core level spectra, in addition to a BL-related component. The BL, which forms because of the chemical bonding between Sn and the top two layers of MBST, has an ordered crystal lattice with random antisite defects. The composition of the BL is estimated to be Sn:Te:Bi/Sb ≈ 2:1:1 from x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Low-energy electron diffraction shows that the lattice constant of stanene is marginally larger than that of MBST, and the STM result aligns with this. The BL bridges this disparity and provides a platform for stanene growth.