Event

Metal chalcogenides have received attention as two-dimensional (2D) materials beyond graphene. Semiconducting chalcogenides are particularly attractive since they exhibit novel physics such as strongly bound excitons and valley polarization, and may enable next-generation electronics benefiting from confinement, high carrier mobility, flexibility and bendability. While transition metal dichalcogenides (particularly MoS2) have been investigated as prototype systems, other materials, especially those incorporating normal metals or metalloids, remain much less studied.

Semiconducting group IV chalcogenides are a family of earth abundant layered materials with attractive properties for technological and energy applications. Here, I demonstrate the successful isolation of few-layer and single-layer group IV chalcogenides, their synthesis and structural transformations probed by in-situ microscopy, and discuss their fundamental properties (e.g., band structure) and characteristics in devices. Finally, I present nanometer-scale measurements of light-matter interactions in these 2D semiconductors, which offer a novel way to probe and manipulate optical excitations in heterogeneous materials near defects, edges, or interfaces.