Journal
NATURE PHYSICS
Volume 10, Issue 6, Pages 451-456Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/NPHYS2954
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- European Research Council
- Graphene Flagship
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (UK)
- Royal Society
- US Office of Naval Research
- US Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- US Army Research Office
- MOST of China [2013CBA01600]
- Korber Foundation
- EPSRC [EP/G035954/1, EP/M003167/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council [1240086, EP/M003167/1, EP/G035954/1] Funding Source: researchfish
Ask authors/readers for more resources
When a crystal is subjected to a periodic potential, under certain circumstances it can adjust itself to follow the periodicity of the potential, resulting in a commensurate state. Of particular interest are topological defects between the two commensurate phases, such as solitons and domain walls. Here we report a commensurate-incommensurate transition for graphene on top of hexagonal boron nitride (hBN). Depending on the rotation angle between the lattices of the two crystals, graphene can either stretch to adapt to a slightly different hBN periodicity (for small angles, resulting in a commensurate state) or exhibit little adjustment (the incommensurate state). In the commensurate state, areas with matching lattice constants are separated by domain walls that accumulate the generated strain. Such soliton-like objects are not only of significant fundamental interest, but their presence could also explain recent experiments where electronic and optical properties of graphene-hBN heterostructures were observed to be considerably altered.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available