Electron quantum metamaterials in van der Waals heterostructures
Electron quantum metamaterials in van der Waals heterostructures
复制标题
DOI：
10.1038/s41565-018-0294-9
复制
发表时间：
2018-11-01
影响因子：
38.3
通讯作者：
Gabor, Nathaniel M.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Song, Justin C. W.;Gabor, Nathaniel M.
近几十年来，科学家们开发出了设计特征尺寸低于光波长的合成周期阵列的方法。当这些特征被适当地构造时，可以以不寻常的方式操纵电磁辐射，从而产生其功能通过纳米级结构直接控制的光学超材料。大自然也采用了此类技术（例如蝴蝶翅膀的独特着色）来操纵光子在纳米级周期性组件中传播。在本视角中，我们强调了在电子波长及以下尺度上设计电子物质结构的有趣潜力，这提供了一系列具有非常规响应的新型合成量子超材料。在堆叠原子层异质结构（例如机械拾取/转移组装）的实验发展的推动下，原子级配准和结构可以在小于特征电子长度尺度（例如电子波长、屏蔽长度和电子平均自由程）的距离上轻松调整。然而，与传统光学超材料技术相比，电子超材料有望提供更丰富的行为类别。这是因为，与几乎不相互作用的光子不同，亚波长结构超材料中的电子带电并且强烈相互作用。因此，可以预期会出现各种各样的新兴现象，并设计出全新类型的相互作用量子超材料。
In recent decades, scientists have developed the means to engineer synthetic periodic arrays with feature sizes below the wavelength of light. When such features are appropriately structured, electromagnetic radiation can be manipulated in unusual ways, resulting in optical metamaterials whose function is directly controlled through nanoscale structure. Nature, too, has adopted such techniques-for example in the unique colouring of butterfly wings-to manipulate photons as they propagate through nanoscale periodic assemblies. In this Perspective, we highlight the intriguing potential of designer structuring of electronic matter at scales at and below the electron wavelength, which affords a new range of synthetic quantum metamaterials with unconventional responses. Driven by experimental developments in stacking atomically layered heterostructuressuch as mechanical pick-up/transfer assembly-atomic-scale registrations and structures can be readily tuned over distances smaller than characteristic electronic length scales (such as the electron wavelength, screening length and electron mean free path). Yet electronic metamaterials promise far richer categories of behaviour than those found in conventional optical metamaterial technologies. This is because, unlike photons, which scarcely interact with each other, electrons in subwavelengthstructured metamaterials are charged and strongly interact. As a result, an enormous variety of emergent phenomena can be expected and radically new classes of interacting quantum metamaterials designed.