The application of a perpendicular electric field can drive silicene into a gapless state, characterized by two nearly fully spin-polarized Dirac cones owing to both relatively large spin-orbital interactions and inversion symmetry breaking. Here we argue that since intervalley scattering from nonmagnetic impurities is highly suppressed by time-reversal symmetry, the physics should be effectively single-Dirac-cone like. Through numerical calculations, we demonstrate that there is no significant backscattering from a single impurity that is nonmagnetic and unit-cell uniform, indicating a stable delocalized state. This conjecture is then further confirmed from a scaling of conductance for disordered systems using the same type of impurities.

• Received 12 February 2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.88.125431