Synthesis and chemistry of elemental 2D materials

Engineering multiple topological phases in nanoscale Van der Waals heterostructures: realisation of α-antimonene

“…To date, only a very limited range of van der Waals heterostructures have been reported, and the mat erials that have been investigated have almost exclusively hexagonal symmetry [1][2][3][9][10][11]. While such graphene-like [12] structures are very promising, an ability to engineer heterostructures with different crystal symmetries could open up significant new opportunities in both fundamental physics and electronic device fabrication.…”

Topological Phase Transitions in the Photonic Spin Hall Effect

“…Given the reported sensitivities for measuring the SHEL through weak measurement approaches [5], we conclude that an experimental demonstration of our results is within current capabilities. In spite of the fast experimental progress in the synthesis of staggered materials of the graphene family [14][15][16][17][18][19][20] suggests that they will be easily accessible in the near future, some of our results can be tested in graphene, as it presents topological insulator features under circularly polarized illumination (only QSHI and AQHI phases can be probed in this case) [39]. We envision the effects predicted here will greatly impact research in spinoptics, spintronics, and valleytronics.…”

“…It exhibits a unique potential for applications in precision metrology, including bio-sensing [7], nanoprobing [8], and thin films and multilayer graphene characterization [9][10][11]. It has also been used to identify different absorption mechanisms in bulk semiconductors [12,13].Staggered two-dimensional semiconductors [14][15][16], including silicene [17], germanene [18], and stanene [19,20] are monolayer materials made of Silicon, Germanium, and Tin atoms, respectively, arranged in a honeycomb lattice. Unlike graphene [21], these materials are nonplanar and possess intrinsic spin-orbit coupling that results in the opening of a gap in their electronic band structure.…”

“…Staggered two-dimensional semiconductors [14][15][16], including silicene [17], germanene [18], and stanene [19,20] are monolayer materials made of Silicon, Germanium, and Tin atoms, respectively, arranged in a honeycomb lattice. Unlike graphene [21], these materials are nonplanar and possess intrinsic spin-orbit coupling that results in the opening of a gap in their electronic band structure.…”

Van der Waals Materials for Atomically-Thin Photovoltaics: Promise and Outlook

“…1-3 , as well as layered allotropes of other p-block elements of the periodic table such as P, As, Te etc. 4 The availability of atomic layer thickness samples of stable, passivated, and dangling bond free semiconductor materials ushers in a new phase in solid state device design and optoelectronics.1, 5-8 A notable feature of the metal chalcogenide 2D semiconductors is the transition from an indirect bandgap in bulk to direct bandgap (Eg) in monolayer form, resulting in a high photoluminescence quantum yield (PL QY) [9][10] in turn corresponding to high radiative efficiency. This combined with the bandgap ranging from visible to near infrared part of the spectrum (1.1 to 2.0 eV) 1 makes the chalcogenides…”