Materials on the edge: nanoscale understanding and control of interfacial and interaction-driven electronic properties of materials

边缘材料：对材料界面和相互作用驱动的电子特性的纳米级理解和控制

• 批准号: RGPIN-2018-04271
• 负责人: Burke, Sarah
• 金额: $ 2.99万
• 依托单位: University of British Columbia
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2018-01-01 至 2019-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=646551
• 关键词: Materials; edge; nanoscale; understanding; control

Today's technologies largely rely on the materials of the past 50-100 years. As we seek to solve human challenges and propel futuristic technologies, new materials and structures will be required to underpin these applications. Many of these will fall into the category of “quantum materials”, where properties differ substantially from the metals, semiconductors and insulators we rely on now, opening up many possibilities for novel applications. Still more opportunities arise from combining multiple materials in new ways. However, development of these materials and structures requires increasingly detailed understanding of their electronic states, arising from their atomic-scale structure, which dictate electronic and optical properties, reactivity, and more. Many of the most exciting emerging materials are those that are, in a variety of ways, “on the edge”: materials on the cusp of electronic phase transitions, at the edge of chemical stability, and interfaces between materials where electronic properties can vastly differ from the bulk and there is the greatest potential to engineer electronic landscapes. Just a few examples of these include molecules that form photoactive acceptor-donor interfaces for organic photovoltaic devices, adsorbed metal-organic complexes for energy and catalysis applications, atomically engineered graphene, and interfaces between materials with unusual electronic states such as topological materials and superconductors. In each of these cases, control over the structure and local environment is essential as small perturbations in structure (e.g. defects or structural disorder) can have a dramatic influence on the resulting properties we hope to use.******Investigation of these emerging materials requires tools that can connect the local electronic structure to the atomic and molecular structure, especially where defects and interfaces dominate resulting properties. Scanning probe microscopy (SPM) techniques provide both local structural and electronic information on the atomic scale. Using pixel-by-pixel tunnelling spectroscopy and electrostatic force spectroscopy alongside imaging methods that reveal the atomic structure of materials we will correlate local structural information with electronic states at these key surfaces and interfaces to understand how structure drives important properties. To expand the already vast toolbox of SPM techniques, we are developing combined optical-SPM methods, undertaking complementary measurements to investigate the dynamics of electronic states at interfaces, and building new instruments that will bridge to complementary techniques such as angle resolved photoemission and transport measurements. These bridging experiments will provide much-needed connection of the atomic-scale understanding provided by SPM to the resulting macro-scale properties most applications are built upon.

当今的技术很大程度上依赖于过去 50-100 年的材料，当我们寻求解决人类挑战并推动未来技术时，将需要新的材料和结构来支撑这些应用，其中许多将属于“量子”类别。材料”，其特性与我们现在依赖的金属、半导体和绝缘体有很大不同，为新颖的应用提供了许多可能性。然而，这些材料和结构的开发需要越来越详细。的理解它们的电子态由原子尺度的结构决定，这些结构决定了电子和光学特性、反应性等，许多最令人兴奋的新兴材料都是那些以各种方式处于“边缘”的材料：电子相变的尖端，处于化学稳定性的边缘，以及材料之间的界面，其中电子特性可能与本体有很大不同，并且最有可能设计电子景观，其中包括形成光活性受体的分子。 -有机供体界面光伏器件、用于能源和催化应用的吸附金属有机复合物、原子工程石墨烯以及拓扑材料和超导体等具有不寻常电子态的材料之间的界面在每种情况下，对结构和局部环境的控制都至关重要。结构中的扰动（例如缺陷或结构紊乱）会对我们希望使用的最终性能产生巨大影响。******研究这些新兴材料需要能够将局部电子结构连接到电子结构的工具。原子和分子结构，特别是在缺陷和界面占主导地位的情况下，扫描探针显微镜（SPM）技术使用逐像素隧道光谱和静电力光谱以及揭示的成像方法提供原子尺度的局部结构和电子信息。材料的原子结构，我们将把局部结构信息与这些关键表面和界面的电子态相关联，以了解结构如何驱动重要的特性。为了扩展已经庞大的 SPM 技术工具箱，我们正在开发组合光学 SPM。方法，尝试用补充方法来研究界面电子测量状态的动力学，并构建新仪器以桥接角分辨光电和输运测量等补充技术，这些桥接实验将为原子尺度的理解提供急需的联系。由 SPM 提供给大多数应用程序所构建的结果宏观尺度属性。