Strong interlayer interactions in bilayer and trilayer moiré superlattices.

Moiré superlattices constructed from transition metal dichalcogenides have demonstrated a series of emergent phenomena, including moiré excitons, flat bands, and correlated insulating states. All of these phenomena depend crucially on the presence of strong moiré potentials, yet the properties of these moiré potentials, and the mechanisms by which they can be generated, remain largely open questions. Here, we use angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy with submicron spatial resolution to investigate an aligned WS2/WSe2 moiré superlattice and graphene/WS2/WSe2 trilayer heterostructure. Our experiments reveal that the hybridization between moiré bands in WS2/WSe2 exhibits an unusually large momentum dependence, with the splitting between moiré bands at the Γ point more than an order of magnitude larger than that at K point. In addition, we discover that the same WS2/WSe2 superlattice can imprint an unexpectedly large moiré potential on a third, separate layer of graphene (g/WS2/WSe2), suggesting new avenues for engineering two-dimensional moiré superlattices.

Interfacial charge transfer and persistent metallicity of ultrathin SrIrO3/SrRuO3 heterostructures.

Interface quantum materials have yielded a plethora of previously unknown phenomena, including unconventional superconductivity, topological phases, and possible Majorana fermions. Typically, such states are detected at the interface between two insulating constituents by electrical transport, but whether either material is conducting, transport techniques become insensitive to interfacial properties. To overcome these limitations, we use angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and molecular beam epitaxy to reveal the electronic structure, charge transfer, doping profile, and carrier effective masses in a layer-by-layer fashion for the interface between the Dirac nodal-line semimetal SrIrO3 and the correlated metallic Weyl ferromagnet SrRuO3. We find that electrons are transferred from the SrIrO3 to SrRuO3, with an estimated screening length of λ = 3.2 ± 0.1 Å. In addition, we find that metallicity is preserved even down to a single SrIrO3 layer, where the dimensionality-driven metal-insulator transition typically observed in SrIrO3 is avoided because of strong hybridization of the Ir and Ru t2g states.

Realization of Epitaxial Thin Films of the Topological Crystalline Insulator Sr3 SnO.

Topological materials are derived from the interplay between symmetry and topology. Advances in topological band theories have led to the prediction that the antiperovskite oxide Sr3 SnO is a topological crystalline insulator, a new electronic phase of matter where the conductivity in its (001) crystallographic planes is protected by crystallographic point group symmetries. Realization of this material, however, is challenging. Guided by thermodynamic calculations, a deposition approach is designed and implemented to achieve the adsorption-controlled growth of epitaxial Sr3 SnO single-crystal films by molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE). In situ transport and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy measurements reveal the metallic and electronic structure of the as-grown samples. Compared with conventional MBE, the used synthesis route results in superior sample quality and is readily adapted to other topological systems with antiperovskite structures. The successful realization of thin films of Sr3 SnO opens opportunities to manipulate topological states by tuning symmetries via strain engineering and heterostructuring.

Stress relaxation in quasi-two-dimensional self-assembled nanoparticle monolayers.

We experimentally probed the stress relaxation of a monolayer of iron oxide nanoparticles at the water-air interface. Upon drop-casting onto a water surface, the nanoparticles self-assembled into islands of two-dimensional hexagonally close packed crystalline domains surrounded by large voids. When compressed laterally, the voids gradually disappeared as the surface pressure increased. After the compression was stopped, the surface pressure (as measured by a Wilhelmy plate) evolved as a function of the film aging time with three distinct timescales. These aging dynamics were intrinsic to the stressed state built up during the non-equilibrium compression of the film. Utilizing x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy, we measured the characteristic relaxation time (τ) of in-plane nanoparticle motion as a function of the aging time through both second-order and two-time autocorrelation analysis. Compressed and stretched exponential fitting of the intermediate scattering function yielded exponents (ß) indicating different relaxation mechanisms of the films under different compression stresses. For a monolayer compressed to a lower surface pressure (between 20 mN/m and 30 mN/m), the relaxation time (τ) decreased continuously as a function of the aging time, as did the fitted exponent, which transitioned from being compressed (>1) to stretched (<1), indicating that the monolayer underwent a stress release through crystalline domain reorganization. However, for a monolayer compressed to a higher surface pressure (around 40 mN/m), the relaxation time increased continuously and the compressed exponent varied very little from a value of 1.6, suggesting that the system may have been highly stressed and jammed. Despite the interesting stress relaxation signatures seen in these samples, the structural ordering of the monolayer remained the same over the sample lifetime, as revealed by grazing incidence x-ray diffraction.