Research Topic

[2D Layered Heterostructure] Topic: 2D Layered Hetrostructures

Minnesota AEM Team: Moon-Ki Choi, Ellad Tadmor

Other PIs: David Flannigan (U. Minnesota), Efthimios Kaxiras (Harvard), Philip Kim (Harvard), Mitchell Luskin (U. Minnesota) (lead-PI), Hossein Mosallaei (Northeastern), Petr Plechac (U. Delaware)

Funding: Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI), Army Research Office, Department of Defense; NSF MRSEC Center, University of Minnesota

Figure: A 2D heterostructure is a stack of 2D materials such as graphene, hexagonal boron nitride, molybdenum disulfide, etc. The properties of the heterostructure depend on which layers are stacked, the stacking order, and relative orientation. Source: A. Geim, Nature, 499:419, 2013.

Description: This project is focused on 2D heterostructures commprised of a stack of 2D materials interacting via weak long-range van der Waals forces. 2D heterostructures are a very new and active field of research that has emerged from recent advances in producing single layers of semi-metals (graphene), insulators (boron nitride) and semiconductors (transition metal dichalcogenides). The prospect of combining the properties of these layered materials opens almost unlimited possibilities for novel devices with desirable, tailor-made electronic, optical, magnetic, thermal and mechanical properties. The extremely broad range of structural and compositional choices demands an effective design tool, based on theory and accurate and efficient computational methodologies across all relevant scales and property ranges. This includes statistical mechanics, large-scale molecular simulations, and novel strongly linked multiscale computational methods. This work is being done in close collaboration with experimentalists who are able to fabricate the structures and apply advanced electron microscopy techniaues to resolve static and dynamic features at nanoscales and femtosecond resolution.

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