Gorbachev, Roman

Date:  Monday, December 5, 2016
Time: 16:00
Place: ETH Zurich, Hönggerberg, HPP M 12
Host:  Lukas Novotny

New materials for Van der Waals heterostructures

Roman Gorbachev
University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

In the last couple of years, a novel field has emerged which deals with structures and devices assembled layer-by-layer from various atomically-thin crystals. These new multilayer structures have proved to be extremely versatile, showing exceptional electronic and optical properties, new physics and new functionality. This is mostly due to the fact that each atomic layer can be chosen among many different materials including metals, semiconductors, superconductors or even topological insulators. For instance, graphene’s ‘sister’ material hexagonal boron nitride has similar mechanical properties but on the contrary is a wide gap insulator. Another example is a large family of transition metal dichalcogenides, most of which have a band gap in visible range and demonstrate a high potential for new optoelectronic devices.
In this talk I will review recent progress in the field and present important milestones in its development. I will discuss new additions to the 2D material family such as black phosphorus (a semiconductor with IR gap) and niobium diselenide (superconductor) and present results on their properties down to one atomic layer thickness. I will present our newest results on atomically thin crystals of Indium Selenide – material that hasn’t been sufficiently studied before and now shows outstanding physical and electronic properties. Specific attention will be paid to fabrication of such structures and their chemical stability as well as charge transport and optical experiments demonstrating various proof-of-concept functionalities.