Observation of a Flat Band in Silicene

Flat bands that exhibit weak band dispersion in crystals can host heavy fermions that are cru- cial to many strongly correlated phenomena, such as ferromagnetism and superconductivity. For topologically trivial flat bands, theories have proven the stability of the ferromagnetic ground state i.e., flat band ferromagnetism. In the presence of weak disorders, systems with flat bands are expected to exhibit unconventional Anderson localization due to the lifting of degeneracy. More interestingly, flat bands with nontrivial topology, i.e., topological flat bands, are expected to host a fractional quantum Hall effect at zero magnetic field. Hence, searching for topologically trivial/nontrivial flat bands （TFB） has been an interesting while challenging task so far.