Publications related to Experimental and first-principles study of point defects, domain walls, and point-defect/domain-wall interactions in ferroelectric oxides

Polarization-enhanced GaN Schottky barrier diodes: Ultra-thin InGaN for high breakdown voltage and low Ron

Elison de Nazareth Matioli, Alessandro Floriduz, Zheng Hao

In this work, we present a concept that leverages the strong piezoelectric polarization field in InGaN, which counteracts the external electric field at reverse bias. We show that despite the smaller InGaN band-gap and lower critical electric field, its st ...

2024

Piezoelectric Properties of BiFeO3 Exposed to High Temperatures

Dragan Damjanovic, Xiaolong Li

BiFeO3 is a ferroelectric with a Curie temperature of 830 C-degrees, however, its piezoelectric performance at high temperature remains unclear. The current work reveals a disappearance/recovery of piezoelectricity in BiFeO3 at elevated temperature and upo ...

Wiley-V C H Verlag Gmbh2024

Molecular intercalation in the van der Waals antiferromagnets FePS3 and NiPS3

Bruce Normand, Xiaoyu Xu, Sheng Xu, Ying Chen, Zeyu Wang, Shuo Li, Weiqiang Yu

We have performed electrochemical treatment of the van der Waals antiferromagnetic materials FePS3 and NiPS3 with the ionic liquid EMIM-BF4, achieving significant molecular intercalation. Mass analysis of the intercalated compounds, EMIMx-FePS3 and EMIMx-N ...

Amer Physical Soc2024

Measuring electrical properties in semiconductor devices by pixelated STEM and off-axis electron holography (or convergent beams vs. plane waves)

Victor Carle Adrien Boureau

We demonstrate the use of both pixelated differential phase contrast (DPC) scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) and off-axis electron holography (EH) for the measurement of electric fields and assess the advantages and limitations of each techn ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2024

Towards Scalable Electronics: Synthetic 2D Materials for Large-Area 2D Circuit Integration

Zhenyu Wang

In the past decades, a significant increase of the transistor density on a chip has led to exponential growth in computational power driven by Moore's law. To overcome the bottleneck of traditional von-Neumann architecture in computational efficiency, effo ...

EPFL2024

Theoretical explanation of passivation behavior in OFP-Cu and OF-Cu

Na Li, Du Wen

This research presents a comprehensive comparative analysis of the passivation kinetics of OFP-Cu and OF-Cu in simulated repository electrolyte. The study employs a range of techniques, including potentiodynamic polarization, multi-step potentiostatic pola ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2024

Efficient and insightful descriptors for representing molecular and material space

Alexander Jan Goscinski

Data-driven approaches have been applied to reduce the cost of accurate computational studies on materials, by using only a small number of expensive reference electronic structure calculations for a representative subset of the materials space, and using ...

EPFL2024

Hydrogen-induced tunable remanent polarization in a perovskite nickelate

Michele Kotiuga

Materials with field-tunable polarization are of broad interest to condensed matter sciences and solid-state device technologies. Here, using hydrogen (H) donor doping, we modify the room temperature metallic phase of a perovskite nickelate NdNiO3 into an ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Shortwave Infrared-Sensitive, Narrowband Organic Upconversion Devices with a Gain

Wei-Hsu Hu

Sensing and imaging of light in the shortwave infrared (SWIR) range is increasingly used in various fields, including bio-imaging, remote sensing, and semiconductor process control. SWIR-sensitive organic photodetectors (OPDs) are promising because organic ...

EPFL2024

Plasmonically enhanced molecular junctions for investigation of atomic-scale fluctuations in self-assembled monolayers

Sakthi Priya Amirtharaj

Molecular junctions represent a fascinating frontier in the realm of nanotechnology and are one of the smallest optoelectronic devices possible, consisting of individual molecules or a group of molecules that serve as the active element sandwiched between ...

EPFL2024

Instabilities in Elastic and Magneto-Elastic Beams and Shells: from Shell Buckling to the Design of a Programmable Braille Reader

Arefeh Abbasi

In this thesis, we conduct a comprehensive investigation into structural instabilities of both elastic and magneto-elastic beams and shells, resulting in a creative proposal to design a programmable braille reader. Methodologically, we combine numerical si ...

EPFL2024

Controlling On-Surface Photoactivity: The Impact of π-Conjugation in Anhydride-Functionalized Molecules on a Semiconductor Surface

Karl-Heinz Ernst, Christian Wäckerlin

On-surface synthesis has become a prominent method for growing low-dimensional carbon-based nanomaterials on metal surfaces. However, the necessity of decoupling organic nanostructures from metal substrates to exploit their properties requires either trans ...

Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH2024

Beyond the coupled distortion model: structural analysis of the single domain cupredoxin AcoP, a green mononuclear copper centre with original features

Luciano Andres Abriata

Cupredoxins are widely occurring copper-binding proteins with a typical Greek-key beta barrel fold. They are generally described as electron carriers that rely on a T1 copper centre coordinated by four ligands provided by the folded polypeptide. The discov ...

Royal Soc Chemistry2024

Field-controlled multicritical behavior and emergent universality in fully frustrated quantum magnets

Bruce Normand

Phase transitions in condensed matter are a source of exotic emergent properties. We study the fully frustrated bilayer Heisenberg antiferromagnet to demonstrate that an applied magnetic field creates a previously unknown emergent criticality. The quantum ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Mapping orthorhombic domains with geometrical phase analysis in rare-earth nickelate heterostructures

Jean-Marc Triscone, Duncan Thomas Lindsay Alexander, Bernat Mundet

Most perovskite oxides belong to the Pbnm space group, composed of an anisotropic unit cell, A-site antipolar displacements, and oxygen octahedral tilts. Mapping the orientation of the orthorhombic unit cell in epitaxial heterostructures that consist of at ...

Aip Publishing2024

Growth and Doping Mechanisms of III-V Nanostructures by Selective Area Epitaxy

Didem Dede

Selective area epitaxy (SAE), applied to semiconductor growth, allows tailored fabrication of intricate structures at the nanoscale with enhanced properties and functionalities. In the field of nanowires (NWs), it adds scalability by enabling the fabricati ...

EPFL2024

Murunskite - a new class of functional material

Davor Tolj

The subject of the present work is discovery and in-depth characterization of a new class of functional materials. Tuning of the bond polarity and orbital occupation with a goal of establishing balance between localization and delocalization of electrons - ...

EPFL2023

Spin Textures in 2D Magnets

Lukas Powalla

The continuous reduction of the structural size in nanotechnology slowed down over the last decade, approaching the natural limit of single atoms as building blocks of matter. Therefore, intensive research is directed toward exploring new frontiers, in par ...

EPFL2023

Interface connection of functionalized carbon nanotubes for efficient and stable perovskite solar cells

Mohammad Khaja Nazeeruddin, Ruiyuan Hu, Jianxing Xia

The ionic defects of hetero-junction interfaces always attract and trap carriers via surface electrostatic forces, which are crucial for the efficiency and intrinsic stability of perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Herein, functionalized carbon nanotubes (CNTs) ...

Royal Society of Chemistry2023

Semiconductor-based device architectures in multimaterial fibers

William Nicolas Duncan Esposito

Semiconductor materials have given rise to today's digital technology and consumer electronics. Widespread adoption is closely linked to the ability to process and integrate them in devices at scale. Where flexibility and large surfaces are required, such ...

EPFL2023