ESPCI web site
November 13 at 2:00 pm (Paris time)
Room Boreau, building C, 2nd floor, 10 rue Vauquelin, ESPCI,
A first-principles pathway to unlock emergent properties in misfit layer compounds
Misfit layer compounds (MLCs) are heterostructures composed of rocksalt units stacked with few-layers transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). Due to their complex composition, these heterostructures have long puzzled the crystallographic community : the research in the field of misfit layer compounds has mostly proceeded by isolated discoveries and trial-and-error chemical synthesis, while general rules to understand what happens when assembling different rocksalts and TMDs were still missing.
We establish an original strategy to study their electronic and vibrational properties by deriving misfits’ physics from those of their constituent layers, unlocking their two-dimensional features [1-3]. By identifying the mechanism governing charge transfer, we demonstrate that misfits behave as a periodic arrangement of ultra-tunable field-effect transistors, allowing for massive and tunable chargings. We investigate misfits exhibiting phenomena such as charge-density waves and superconductivity in comparison with state-of-the-art experiments. Our work aims to guide the design of MLCs with targeted emergent properties for future device applications.
[1] L. Zullo, G. Marini, T. Cren, M. Calandra, Nano Lett. 2023, 23, 14, 6658-6663 (2023).
[2] L. Zullo*, G. Setnikar*, A. Pawbake, T. Cren, C. Brun, J. Cordiez, S. Sasaki, L. Cario, G. Marini, M. Calandra, and M.-A. Méasson, Phys. Rev. B 110, 075430 (2024).
[3] L. Zullo, "Emergent properties of misfit layer compounds from first principles." (https://theses.hal.science/tel-04944761v1)
