Symmetry Breakdown in Franckeite: Spontaneous Strain, Rippling, and Interlayer Moire
Spontaneous Strain, Rippling, and Interlayer Moiré
Riccardo Frisenda (Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid (ICMM))
Gabriel Sanchez-Santolino (Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid (ICMM))
Nikos Papadopoulos (TU Delft - QRD/Goswami Lab, Kavli institute of nanoscience Delft)
Joanna Urban (CNRS-UPS)
Michal Baranowski (CNRS-UPS, Wrocław University of Technology)
Alessandro Surrente (CNRS-UPS)
Duncan K. Maude (CNRS-UPS)
Mar Garcia-Hernandez (Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid (ICMM))
Herre S.J. van der Zant (TU Delft - QN/van der Zant Lab, Kavli institute of nanoscience Delft)
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Abstract
Franckeite is a naturally occurring layered mineral with a structure composed of alternating stacks of SnS2-like and PbS-like layers. Although this superlattice is composed of a sequence of isotropic two-dimensional layers, it exhibits a spontaneous rippling that makes the material structurally anisotropic. We demonstrate that this rippling comes hand in hand with an inhomogeneous in-plane strain profile and anisotropic electrical, vibrational, and optical properties. We argue that this symmetry breakdown results from a spatial modulation of the van der Waals interaction between layers due to the SnS2-like and PbS-like lattices incommensurability.