Nadya Mason (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)

Date: Thu. October 22nd, 2020, 4:00 pm-5:00 pm
Location: Via Zoom

Link to video

Electronic Transport in Strain-Engineered Graphene 

There is wide interest in using strain-engineering to modify the physical properties of 2D materials, for both basic science and applications. Deformations of graphene, for example, can lead to the opening of band gaps, as well as the generation of pseudo-magnetic fields and novel electronic states. We demonstrate how controllable, device-compatible strain patterns in graphene can be engineered by depositing graphene on corrugated substrates. We discuss several techniques for creating corrugated substrates, focusing on periodic spherical curvature patterns in the form of closely packed nanospheres. We show how the smaller nanospheres induce larger tensile strain in graphene, and explain the microscopic mechanism of this. We also present experimental results demonstrating how a nearly periodic array of underlying nanospheres creates a strain superlattice in graphene, where the transport properties can be tuned by changing the magnitude of strain in the superlattice. This control of the strain degree of freedom provides a novel platform both for fundamental studies of 2D electron correlations and for prospective applications in 2D electronic devices.