二维铁电材料α-In2Se3 表面分子束外延生长Pb 纳米岛的STM 研究

铁电材料拥有自发电极化, 不同的极化方向会对异质结的电子结构产生可逆的和非易失性的影响. 本工作采用分子束外延技术在二维铁电材料α-In2Se3 衬底上成功制备了 Pb 纳米岛构建 Pb/α-In2Se3 超导铁电异质结,并通过扫描隧道显微镜表征了其表面原子结构与电子结构. 进一步的扫描隧道谱测量显示不同层厚 Pb 岛的量子阱态消失, 并且我们在4.5 K 的温度下没有观察到超导能隙, 表明铁电衬底会影响 Pb 岛的电子结构, 甚至其超导特性. 这些发现为理解铁电衬底对超导性的影响提供了参考, 并为调控低维量子材料中的电子结构及超导性提供了新的思路.     

Chiral selective tunneling induced graphene nanoribbon switch

An armchair graphene nanoribbon switch has been designed based on the principle of the Klein paradox. The resulting switch displays an excellent on-off ratio performance. An anomalous tunneling phenomenon, in which electrons do not pass through the graphene nanoribbon junction even when the conventional resonance condition is satisfied, is observed in our numerical simulations. A selective tunneling rule is proposed to explain this interesting transport behavior based on our analytical results. Based on this selective rule, our switch design can also achieve the confinement of an electron to form a quantum qubit.      

Resistance switching memory in perovskite oxides

The resistance switching behavior has recently attracted great attentions for its application as resistive random access memories (RRAMs) due to a variety of advantages such as simple structure, high-density, high-speed and low-power. As a leading storage media, the transition metal perovskite oxide owns the strong correlation of electrons and the stable crystal structure, which brings out multifunctionality such as ferroelectric, multiferroic, superconductor, and colossal magnetoresistance/electroresistance effect, etc. The existence of rich electronic phases, metal–insulator transition and the nonstoichiometric oxygen in perovskite oxide provides good platforms to insight into the resistive switching mechanisms.     

Localization or tunneling in asymmetric double-well potentials

An asymmetric double-well potential is considered, assuming that the wells are parabolic around the minima. The WKB wave function of a given energy is constructed inside the barrier between the wells. By matching the WKB function to the exact wave functions of the parabolic wells on both sides of the barrier, for two almost degenerate states, we find a quantization condition for the energy levels which reproduces the known energy splitting formula between the two states. For the other low-lying non-degenerate states, we show that the eigenfunction should be primarily localized in one of the wells with negligible magnitude in the other. Using Dekker’s method (Dekker, 1987), the present analysis generalizes earlier results for weakly biased double-well potentials to systems with arbitrary asymmetry.     

Effect of bias voltage and electrodes size on the Pd conductance histograms

Conductance histograms of palladium nanocontacts in ultra high vacuum (UHV) were experimentally studied at room temperature using scanning tunneling microscope (STM). Our results show that the resolution of the pure Pd peaks, at 1.8 and around 3G₀, in the histograms, depends on the bias voltage and the electrodes size. The size of the electrodes should be as small as possible to achieve the higher extraction of hydrogen from them and therefore preventing the diffusion of H from the bulk to the nanocontacts during the conductance measurements, particularly at low bias voltage. This could explain why peaks have not been observed previously in the Pd histograms, using STM techniques in UHV.     

Two-dimensional functional molecular nanoarchitectures – Complementary investigations with scanning tunneling microscopy and X-ray spectroscopy

Functional molecular nanoarchitectures (FMNs) are highly relevant for the development of future nanotechnology devices. Profound knowledge about the atomically controlled construction of such nanoscale assemblies is an indispensable requirement to render the implementation of such components into a real product successful. For exploiting their full potential the architectures’ functionalities have to be characterized in detail including the ways to tailor them. In recent years a plethora of sophisticated constructs were fabricated touching a wide range of research topics.     

Azimuthal Dipolar Rotor Arrays on Surfaces

A set of dipolar molecular rotor compounds was designed, synthesized and adsorbed as self-assembled 2D arrays on Ag(111) surfaces. The title molecules are constructed from three building blocks: (a) 4,8,12-trioxatriangulene (TOTA) platforms that are known to physisorb on metal surfaces such as Au(111) and Ag(111), (b) phenyl groups attached to the central carbon atom that function as pivot joints to reduce the barrier to rotation, (c) pyridine and pyridazine units as small dipolar units on top. Theoretical calculations and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) investigations hint at the fact that the dipoles of neighboring rotors interact through space through pairs of energetically favorable head-to-tail arrangements.