Periodic Reporting for period 4 - E-DESIGN (Artificial designer materials)
Reporting period: 2023-03-01 to 2024-08-31
The artificial designer materials we study are characterized by the engineered electronic response with atomically precise geometries, lattice symmetries and controlled interactions. Such ingredients can result in ultimately controllable materials that have large, robust and quick responses to small stimuli with applications in nanoelectronics, flexible electronics, high-selectivity and high-sensitivity sensors, and optoelectronic components. Longer term, the biggest impact is expected through a profound change in the way we view materials and what can be achieved through designer materials approach.
We have achieved breakthrough results on combining monolayer ferromagnets (VSe2, CrBr3) with superconducting substrates with the aim of realizing topological superconductivity ("Topological superconductivity in a van der Waals heterostructure", Nature 588, 424-428 (2020)). We have continued the work on van der Waals heterostructures and realized an artificial heavy fermion system in 1T/1H-TaS2 vertical heterostructure (Nature 599, 582 (2021)). The latter result has opened a new research topic in the field with several groups globally now working on it.
Finally, towards the end of the project, we have investigated two-dimensional multiferroic materials (Adv. Mater. 2024), which have very exciting prospects both in novel quantum technologies as well as purely scientificially.