(Phys.org) A team led by scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory explored how atomically thin two-dimensional (2-D) crystals can grow over 3-D objects and how the curvature of those objects can stretch and strain the crystals. “You can engineer how much strain you impart to a crystal by designing objects for them to grow over,” said Kai Xiao, who with ORNL colleagues David Geohegan and postdoctoral researcher Kai Wang (now at Intel) conceived the study. “Strain is one way to make ‘hot spots’ for single photon emitters.”
At ORNL, Wang and Xiao designed experiments with Bernadeta Srijanto to explore the growth of 2-D crystals over lithographically patterned arrays of nanoscale shapes. The crystals grew as an orderly lattice of atoms in perfect triangular tiles that grew larger with time by adding row after row of atoms to their outer edges.
“The results present exciting opportunities to take two-dimensional materials and vertically integrate them into the third dimension for next-generation electronics,” said Xiao.
2-D Crystals Conforming to 3-D Curves Create Strain for Engineering Quantum Devices
