The Growth And Band Structure Of A Graphene-Encapsulated Two-Dimensional Nodal Line Semimetal: Cu2si

Nodal-line Dirac semimetals are a novel class of quantum materials, where valence and conduction bands form linearly dispersing cones that are degenerate along a closed line in the Brillouin zone. Recently, single-layer Cu2Si was proposed as the first two-dimensional nodal-line semimetal. Here we demonstrate the formation of Cu2Si encapsulated between a graphene layer and a Cu(1 1 1) substrate, and investigate the electronic states of this heterostructure. We find that the Cu2Si-graphene interaction is negligible and show that, as a result, the graphene layer is electronically decoupled from the substrate.