Fingerprinting the Properties of WS₂ Nanostructures using Advanced Transmission Electron Microscopy Techniques: From Growth to Characterization

Two-dimensional (2D) layered materials have attracted the interest of the scientific community following the discovery of graphene and its extraordinary properties. Of particular interest is a class of materials called transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). The materials within this class were discovered to show similarly...

4D-STEM Nanoscale Strain Analysis in van der Waals Materials: Advancing beyond Planar Configurations

Achieving nanoscale strain fields mapping in intricate van der Waals (vdW) nanostructures, like twisted flakes and nanorods, presents several challenges due to their complex geometry, small size, and sensitivity limitations. Understanding these strain fields is pivotal as they significantly influence the optoelectronic properties of vdW...

Heterostrain-Driven Bandgap Increase in Twisted WS₂: A Nanoscale Study

Twisted 2D materials present an enticing platform for exploring diverse electronic properties owning to the tunability of their bandgap energy. However, the intricate relationship between local heterostrain fields, thickness, and bandgap energy remains insufficiently understood, particularly at the nanoscale. Here, it presents a comprehensive...

Spatially Resolved Band Gap and Dielectric Function in Two-Dimensional Materials from Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy

The electronic properties of two-dimensional (2D) materials depend sensitively on the underlying atomic arrangement down to the monolayer level. Here we present a novel strategy for the determination of the band gap and complex dielectric function in 2D materials achieving a spatial resolution down to a few nanometers. This approach is based...

Revealing the nanogeometry of WS2 nanoflowersby polarization-resolved Raman spectroscopy

Recent studies of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have revealed exciting optical properties, such as stable excitons and chiral light–matter interactions. Chemical vapor deposition techniques provide a platform for the fabrication of nanostructures with diverse geometries, ranging from horizontal flakes to flower-like structures. Raman...

First-Principles Calculation of Optoelectronic Properties in 2D Materials: The Polytypic WS₂ Case

The phenomenon of polytypism, namely unconventional crystal phases displaying a mixture of stacking sequences, represents a powerful handle to design and engineer novel physical properties in two-dimensional (2D) materials. In this work, we characterize from first-principles the optoelectronic properties associated with the 2H/3R polytypism...

Charting the low-loss region in electron energy loss spectroscopy with machine learning

Exploiting the information provided by electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) requires reliable access to the low-loss region where the zero-loss peak (ZLP) often overwhelms the contributions associated to inelastic scatterings off the specimen. Here we deploy machine learning techniques developed in particle physics to realise a model...

Morphology-induced spectral modification of self-assembled WS₂pyramids

Due to their intriguing optical properties, including stable and chiral excitons, two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (2D-TMDs) hold the promise of applications in nanophotonics. Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) techniques offer a platform to fabricate and design nanostructures with diverse geometries. However, the more exotic the...

Illuminating the Electronic Properties of WS₂ Polytypism with Electron Microscopy

Tailoring the specific stacking sequence (polytypes) of layered materials represents a powerful strategy to identify and design novel physical properties. While nanostructures built upon transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) with either the 2H or 3R crystalline phases have been routinely studied, knowledge of TMD nanomaterials based on...

Robust Sample Preparation of Large-Area In- and Out-of-Plane Cross Sections of Layered Materials with Ultramicrotomy

Layered materials (LMs) such as graphene or MoS2 have attracted a great deal of interest recently. These materials offer unique functionalities due to their structural anisotropy characterized by weak van der Waals bonds along the out-of-plane axis and covalent bonds in the in-plane direction. A central requirement to access the structural...

Vertically-oriented MoS₂ nanosheets for nonlinear optical devices

Transition metal dichalcogenides such as MoS2 represent promising candidates for building blocks of ultra-thin nanophotonic devices. For such applications, vertically-oriented MoS2 (v-MoS2) nanosheets could be advantageous as compared to conventional horizontal MoS2 (h-MoS2) given that their inherent broken symmetry would favor an enhanced...

System for flow visualization in swimming

Understanding the power balance of a swimmer, who needs to overcome power losses to drag and to water set in motion, requires detailed insight into the hydrodynamics of the flow around the swimmer. This will be done from a hydrodynamic point of view with techniques familiar from fluid mechanics. One of our objectives is to develop a system to...