Recent Progress on Germanene and Functionalized Germanene: Preparation, Characterizations, Applications, and Challenges

A new family of single-atom-thick 2D germanium-based materials with graphene-like atomic arrangement, germanene and functionalized germanene, has attracted intensive attention due to their large bandgap and easily tailored electronic properties. Unlike carbon atoms in graphene, germanium atoms tend to adopt mixed sp²/sp³ hybridization in germanene, which makes it chemically active on the surface and allows its electronic states to be easily tuned by chemical functionalization. Impressive achievements in terms of the applications in energy storage and catalysis have been reported by using germanene and functionalized germanene. Herein, the fabrication of epitaxial germanene on different metallic substrates and its unique electronic properties are summarized. Then, the preparation strategies and the fundamental properties of hydrogen-functionalized germanene (germanane or GeH) and other ligand-terminated forms of germanene are presented. Finally, the progress of their applications in energy storage and catalysis, including both experimental results and theoretical predictions, is analyzed.