Internet-of-Things (IoT) is projected to become a multi-trillion-dollar market, but most applications cannot afford replacing batteries on such a large scale, driving the need for battery alternatives.

We recently discovered that freestanding graphene membranes are in perpetual motion when held at room temperature [1-3]. Surprisingly, the random up-down motion of the membrane does not follow classical Brownian motion, but instead is super-diffusive at short times and sub-diffusive at long times. Furthermore, the velocity probability distribution function is non-Gaussian and follows the heavy-tailed Cauchy-Lorentz distribution, consistent with Levy flights.

Molecular dynamics simulations reveal that mechanical buckling is spontaneously occurring, and that this is the mechanism responsible for the anomalous movement. Bucking in this system occurs when the local material suddenly flips from concave to convex.

The higher kinetic energy associated with this motion is derived from the surrounding thermal waste heat, and it may be converted into an electrical current and used as the active component of small power generators known as ambient vibration energy harvesters.

References:

[1] P. Xu, M. Neek-Amal, S.D. Barber, J.K. Schoelz, M.L. Ackerman, P.M. Thibado, A. Sadeghi, and F.M. Peeters, Nature Comm. 5, 3720 (2014).

[2] M. Neek-Amal, P. Xu, J.K. Schoelz, M.L. Ackerman, S.D. Barber, P.M. Thibado, A. Sadeghi, and F.M. Peeters, Nature Comm. 5, 4962 (2014).

[3] M.L. Ackerman, P. Kumar, M. Neek-Amal, P.M. Thibado, F.M. Peeters, and S.P. Singh, Phys., Rev. Lett. 117, 126801 (2016).

It has been claimed that graphene, with the elastic modulus of 1 TPa and theoretical strength as high as 130 GPa, is the strongest material. However, from an engineering point of view, it is the fracture toughness that determines the actual strength of materials, as crack-like flaws (i.e., cracks, holes, notches, corners, etc.) are inevitable in design, fabrication and operation of practical devices and systems. Recently, it has been demonstrated that graphene has very low fracture toughness, in fact close to that of ideally brittle solids. These findings have raised sharp questions and are calling for efforts to explore effective methods to toughen graphene. Recently, we have been exploring the potential use of topological effects to enhance the fracture toughness of graphene. For example, it has been shown that a sinusoidal graphene containing periodically distributed disclination quadrupoles can achieve a mode I fracture toughness nearly twice that of pristine graphene. Here we report working progresses on further studies of topological toughening of graphene and other 2D materials. A phase field crystal method is adopted to generate the atomic coordinates of material with specific topological patterns. We then perform molecular dynamics simulation of fracture in the designed samples, and observe a variety of toughening mechanisms, including crack tip blunting, crack trapping, ligament bridging, crack deflection and daughter crack initiation and coalescence.

Single monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) exhibit exceptionally strong photoluminescence dominated by a combination of distinct neutral and charged exciton contributions. The dielectric screening is very low due to their two-dimensional character relative to bulk material, and their properties are thus strongly affected by their immediate environment. Because the exciton and trion binding energies are very large (~ 600 meV and ~30 meV, respectively), these characteristic emission features persist to room temperature. The samples were fabricated by mechanically transferring large area monolayer WS₂ grown by a CVD process onto 100 nm thick lead zirconium titanate (PZT) films on a conducting n-type strontium titanate wafer. We show here that the surface charge associated with ferroelectric domains patterned into the PZT film with a conductive atomic force microscope laterally control the spatial distribution of neutral and charged exciton populations in the adjacent WS₂ monolayer [1]. This is manifested in the intensity and spectral composition of the photoluminescence measured in air at room temperature from the areas of WS₂ over a ferroelectric domain with polarization dipole pointed either out of the surface plane or into the surface plane. The photoluminescence from areas of the WS₂ over up polarization domains in the PZT are dominated by neutral exciton emission, while those over down domains are dominated by trion emission, consistent with the corresponding charge produced by the domains at the WS₂ / PZT interface. The hysteretic character of ferroelectric materials means that the TMD properties can be selectively reconfigured in a nonvolatile manner by changing the state of the ferroic substrate. This approach enables spatial modulation of TMD properties with a spatial resolution determined by the polarization domains in the underlying ferroelectric layer, with the potential for fabrication of lateral quantum dot arrays or p-n junctions in any geometry of choice.

[1] C.H. Li, K.M. McCreary and B.T. Jonker, ACS Omega 1, 1075 (2016).

This work was supported by core programs at NRL and the NRL Nanoscience Institute, and by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research #AOARD 14IOA018-134141.

Ultra-thin semiconductor crystals, realized from transition metal dichalcogenides and other Van der Waals materials, exhibit fascinating optical properties. In the limit of a single monolayer of material, the Coulomb interactions between the optically excited electrons and holes are particularly strong and specifically deviate in functional form from that familiar from bulk semiconductors (1/εr) [1]. In combination with the reduced dimensionality, the resultant interaction effects are an order of magnitude stronger than those that were previously observed in quantum well structures realized in epitaxially grown multilayers. The lowest energy excitations created by optical excitation are bound electron-hole pairs (excitons). The binding energy is on the 0.5 eV scale and the ladder of bound state energies observed deviate significantly from the spectrum predicted by the conventional hydrogenic model [2]. In the presence of excess carriers, the excitons also form a bound complex with either an excess electron or hole (trions) [1]. As the density of optically excited excitons is increased, pairs of bound excitons form (biexcitons), with a clear spectroscopic signature [3]. All of these characteristics of excitons and exciton complexes in transition metal dichalcogenides can be understood directly from the strong and modified form of the Coulomb interaction, including both the role of the environment and the impact of the intrinsic screening response of the material. In particular, a model Hamiltonian can be fully determined from microscopic inputs and solved for the properties of the observed excitons and associated complexes. Variational solutions are semiquantitative while supplying insight. A Monte Carlo approach solves the model Hamiltonian numerically exactly and gives quantitative relationships among the exciton and exciton complex binding energies [4]. Extensions of these approaches to understand excited states in more complex combinations of such layered materials will also be discussed.

Work performed in part at the CFN, which is a U.S. DOE Office of Science Facility, at BNL under Contract No. DE-SC0012704 and with resources from NERSC under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.

[1] T. C. Berkelbach, M. S. Hybertsen, and D. R. Reichman, Phys. Rev. B 88, 045318 (2013).

[2] A. Chernikov, T. C. Berkelbach, H. M. Hill, A. Rigosi, Y. Li, O. B. Aslan, D. R. Reichman, M. S. Hybertsen, and T. F. Heinz, Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 076802 (2014).

[3] Y. You, X.-X. Zhang, T. C. Berkelbach, M. S. Hybertsen, D. R. Reichman, and T. F. Heinz, Nat. Phys. 11, 477 (2015).

[4] M. Z. Mayers, T. C. Berkelbach, M. S. Hybertsen, and D. R. Reichman, Phys. Rev. B 92, 161404 (2015).