2D materials offer unprecedented tunability by electrostatic gating and strain because it is atomically thin, and van der Waals heterostructures created by stacking or epitaxial growth can generate new behaviors by bringing together materials with disparate properties. For spintronics, magnetism, and photonics, we are interested in graphene, 2D magnets, 2D semiconductors, and 2D semimetals.
- Graphene has the longest spin diffusion length of any material at room temperature.
- 2D magnets exhibit ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetic with tunable magnetic properties with TC ranging from low temperature to above room temperature.
- 2D semiconductors MoS2, MoSe2, WS2, WSe2 have direct bandgap in the monolayer limit and have two valleys (K, K’) with spin-valley locking and optical valley selection rules. These are useful for photonics, valleytronics, and optospintronics.
- 2D semimetals WTe2 and MoTe2 have strong spin-orbit coupling for quantum spin Hall states and strong spin-charge interconversion. These are useful for spin-orbit torques and electrical detection of spin currents.
Here is a recent review article (Sierra et al.) for more information.
Our group has been engaged in the following research:
 Spin Transport in Graphene |
 2D Magnets |
 Optical Spin and Valley Excitations |
| Science | 2D Materials: Spintronics, Magnetism, and Photonics