Atoms do strange things when they are forced to leave their comfortable places. Rice University engineers have come up with a new (Impacts can be smooth quantum tests) way to twist them.
Materials theorist Boris Yakobson and his team at Rice’s George R. The Brown School of Engineering theorize that changing the contours of a layer of 2D material so that the relationships between its atoms may change is easier than previously thought.
While some 2D attachments rotate – two layers combined – graphene and others to change their topology, Rice researchers suggest through computational models that the growth or pressing of single-layer 2D materials on a carefully designed corrugated surface “has not yet been experienced.” the level can “get out of control” over its magnetic and electronic properties.
The discovery is said to pave the way for the study of many physical effects, and interactions between many microscopic particles, including quantum systems.
The role of Yakobson and two graduates, co-authors Sunny Gupta and Henry Yu, in his lab can be seen in Nature Communications.
Recent discoveries have inspired researchers that distortion or distortion of 2D two-layer materials, such as two-layer graphene, triggers interesting electronic and magnetic phenomena in the “magic corners”, including superconductivity.
Their models show that instead of wrapping, simply stamping, or growing 2D material, such as hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) on a bumpy surface, it naturally penetrates the lattice of the material, causing its pseudo electric and pseudo electric magnets. fields can form and can be exposed to many physical effects. similar to that found in twisted materials.
Flat hBN is an insulator, but scientists have found that the stress on atoms in their model creates band structures, making it essentially a semiconductor.
According to Gupta, the advantage of their strategy is that the deformation can be very well controlled by the bumps on the surface, because the substrates can be precisely shaped by electron beam lithography. “It will also allow control of electronic state changes and quantum effects by designing substrates with different topographic properties,” he said.
Because the charge can be manipulated to flow in one direction, the path it follows is a model for 1D systems. Yakobson said it could be used to investigate the properties of 1D quantum systems that are not accessible through twisted graphene.
“Imagine a one-lane road where cars can drive in the same direction,” Gupta said. “One car can’t catch up, so the traffic only starts when all the cars are moving in bulk. “This is not the case in 2D or where there are many jobs where cars – like electrons – can pass,” he said. “Like cars, electrons flow in a 1D system collectively and not individually. This makes 1D systems special in rich, unexplored physics.
Gupta said it is easier to create a bumpy substrate with an electron beam than it is now to rotate 2D connections of graphene or other heterostructures, such as hBN, to the bottom of one level.
“In addition, 1D quantum states can be implemented, which are often inaccessible due to 2D bilayer distortion,” he said. “This will make it possible to examine the physical effects of 1D, which has become increasingly difficult so far.”
