Project description
Novel microscope to capture complex electron behaviour
Understanding electron behaviour in quantum materials is central to advancing technologies like quantum computing, energy systems and ultra-efficient electronics. These materials driven by complex electron interactions exhibit unique properties, including superconductivity, yet current tools can hardly capture these interactions. The ERC-funded QTM project plans to develop the quantum twisting microscope – a groundbreaking instrument combining three capabilities. First, it will use an ultra-thin tip to measure quantum interference locally, offering unprecedented insight into electron behaviour. Second, it will allow precise control over the twist angle between materials. Third, it is slated to dramatically improve spatial resolution for imaging electrostatic properties. With early experiments already showing exciting results, the proposed approach could boost the study of quantum materials and reveal phenomena previously beyond our reach.
Objective
In this work, we propose to build a radically new type of scanning probe microscope – the Quantum Twisting Microscope (QTM) – that will be the first capable of performing local quantum interference measurements at a twistable interface between two quantum materials. The concept, already established in preliminary experiments, is based on a unique tip made of an atomically-thin two-dimensional material. This tip allows electrons to coherently tunnel into a sample at many locations at once, making it a scanning electronic interferometer. With an extra twist degree of freedom, our microscope becomes a momentum-resolving local probe, providing powerful new ways to study the energy dispersions of interacting electrons in quantum materials. The same microscope, working in a second modality, will be the-first-of-its-kind platform for cryogenic assembly of interfaces between various van der Waals materials with full in-situ control over their twist angle. Finally, in a third modality, the QTM will make a dramatic jump, by two orders of magnitude, in the spatial resolution of electrostatic imaging. This will open a new world of interacting electron phenomena that were so far inaccessible to direct visualization. We have recently built a preliminary room temperature version of this microscope, and already observed striking quantum interference and promising results on all three fronts. By taking this new microscope to cryogenic temperatures, we expect to make multiple discoveries on a variety of fundamental questions in interacting quantum matter.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2022-ADG
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7610001 Rehovot
Israel
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