Ambient exposure covers van der Waals materials with a self-assembled monolayer of normal alkanes, a form of contamination we previously identified using STM and infrared spectroscopy. In STM measurements of graphene and graphite, it has two clear fingerprints: it suppresses the phonon-induced tunneling gap and it produces an anomalously small current–distance decay constant.
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Our group has identified, using low temperature STM and infrared spectroscopy measurements, the structure and composition of the hydrocarbon contamination found on many van der Waals material surfaces (hBN, MoS2, etc.). When exposing fresh surfaces to ambient conditions, the initial contamination layer is replaced within days by a monolayer of straight chain alkanes. These alkanes […]
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Our STM measurements reveal a degenerate many-body ground state in the flat band of rhombohedral graphite. The system at charge neutrality is possibly the simplest crystal hosting quantum magnetism, forming a new experimental platform to study strongly correlated electrons.
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Using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) measurements, we have observed the closing of the topological gap in the van der Waals material ZrTe5, by applying mechanical deformations to it in the form of bubbles.
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Pt2HgSe3 is a layered, van der Waals mineral, called jacutingaite. It was discovered in 2008 in Brazil [1] and the monolayer has been predicted to be a large gap topological insulator [2]. Our group has been able to detect signatures of the predicted topological edge states, within a bulk gap that is larger than 100 […]
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