New Publication Demonstrates a New Way to Engineer Quantum States in 2D Materials

 

 

In a new Nano Letters publication, “Crystallizing Electrons with Artificially Patterned Lattices,” University of Arizona Graduate student Trevor Stanfill, his PhD advisor Physics Professor John Schaibley, and their collaborators demonstrate a new way to engineer and control quantum states in two-dimensional (2D) materials.

 

In recent years, intense interest amongst condensed matter and materials scientists has gone into studying two-dimensional materials, crystalline materials that are as thin as a single atom. The remarkably thin and flat nature of 2D materials allows them to host quantum phases of matter that are entirely impossible in other materials. To unlock these states of matter, scientists currently rely on a challenging and unrefined “stacking” method, where two of these layers are stacked together like Legos to create a new periodic lattice that determines the charge arrangement. While this has led to some of the more remarkable discoveries in physics over the past 20 years, the shape of the lattice is inherently limited by the structure of the materials being stacked together.  Our recent publication demonstrated an alternative approach to address this limitation. We used standard semiconductor manufacturing methods to design our own lattice into a 2D material and used it to ‘freeze’ electrons in an adjacent 2D material into a crystalline state. This crystallized state is known to be remarkably fragile and notoriously elusive, demonstrating how powerful this approach can be to engineer novel states of matter.  

 

The findings showcase a promising new strategy for designing quantum materials and give researchers greater flexibility to create and study previously inaccessible quantum phenomena. Read the full publication here: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.nanolett.6c01260