Wisconsin MRSEC researchers have demonstrated that strain can dramatically alter the magnetoelastic properties of a two-dimensional material, CrSBr. Magnetoelasticity is the interaction between magnetism and strain. The researchers developed a nanoscale mechanical resonator device to measure the material’s magnetoelastic coupling. Using it, they showed that 2D CrSBr has a particularly large coupling, and that it can be tuned by 50% by stretching the 2D membrane.
Wisconsin MRSEC researchers have developed a new way to see how molecules fit together with an electron microscope. They used the method to see how molecules rearrange when an organic semiconductor is heated. A modest change in temperature creates significantly improved molecular alignment. The improved alignment is reflected in both larger aligned regions and straighter lines of molecules inside each region.
One of the most active research directions of 2D materials research is to explore new quantum phenomena and emergent phases. A major obstacle to the advancement of this direction has been the limited spectroscopic access due to a mismatch in the van der Waals sample sizes (1 – 10 µm) and the large wavelengths (0.1 − 1 mm) of electromagnetic radiation relevant to their low-energy landscape and excitations. This work, carried out by the MRSEC team at Columbia University, now offers a new “van der Waals stacking approach” for exploring direct spectroscopic insight into the low-energy landscape of quantum phases by leveraging the fundamental benefits of van der Waals assembly. More practically, the very efficient THz emitting material that can be integrated on a chip will be of great use for next-generation 6G communications and networking that rely on THz technologies.
The discovery of superconductivity in twisted graphene systems has generated tremendous interest, where low-energy flat bands with strong correlations play a key role. Flat bands may also be induced by moiré patterning in the transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), however experimental observation of superconductivity has remained absent. This raises the question as to whether superconductivity is a universal feature in flat-band, two-dimensional systems or there is some unique graphene-specific feature that makes superconductivity favorable.
FORGES is a summer program designed to offer exposure and experience in collegiate-level STEM work to local high school students who are interested in a career or academic pathway in STEM. CHARM partners with University of Delaware departments and industry partners to provide hands-on activities, collegiate and industrial laboratory exposure, and interactions with faculty, students, and staff.
Despite being a primary experimental probe of spin-charge coupled dynamics and transport, there have been virtually no calculations of THz radiation from such systems since the inception of this field in 1996. The MRSEC team at the University of Delaware this longstanding problem by introducing two new complementary frameworks, which combine time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) or time-dependent nonequilibrium Green’s functions (TDNEGF) with Jefimenko solutions of the Maxwell equations.
Computationally designed tetrameric coiled coils, ranging from 8-29 amino acids, revealed a minimum of three heptads (21 amino acids) is necessary for stable coiled coil formation, establishing a minimum sequence for the creation of building blocks to construct nanostructured material.
This study develops new design approaches for specifying the mutual interactions between many interacting subunit species such that they self-assemble into a user-specified two-dimensional tiling with high yield. By enumerating and assembling a wide variety of tilings with increasing unit-cell size and complexity, the authors identify economical design rules for targeting tilings with the largest unit-cell sizes using the minimum number of components.
The MRSEC team at Brandeis University explained the origin of the solidification observed in contractile mixtures of motors and microtubules.
The MRSEC team at the University of Minnesota investigated the self-assembly phase behaviors of frustrated bottlebrush block terpolymers PLA-PEP-PS synthesized via sequential ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) of norbornene-functionalized poly(D,L-lactic acid) (PLA), poly(ethylene-alt-propylene) (PEP), and polystyrene (PS).
