Emerging Two-dimensional Materials: graphene and its other structural analogues

The study of graphene, since its discovery around 2004, is possibly the largest and fastest growing field of research in material science, because of its exotic mechanical, thermal, electronic, optical and chemical properties. The studies of graphene have also led to further research in exploring the field of two dimensional (2D) systems in general. For instance, a number of other 2D crystals (not based on carbon, e.g., boronitrene, silicone, graphane, etc.) have been synthesized or predicted theoretically in recent years. Further, theoretical studies have predicted the possibility of other 2D hexagonal crystals of Ge, SiC, GeC, AlN, GaN, etc. The properties of these 2D materials are very different from their bulk. We shall present the general exotic properties of graphene like 2D systems followed by our computational results on the structural and electronic properties of some of them.