Closed-shell atoms scattered from a metal surface exchange energy and momentum with surface phonons mostly via the interposed surface valence electrons, i.e., via the creation of virtual electron-hole pairs. The latter can then decay into surface phonons v ...
3d transition-metal oxide materials with strong electron correlations and low dimensionality give rise to emerging exotic phases. Resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) has developed as a powerful spectroscopic tool for probing the collective excitatio ...
Atomic design of a 2D-material such as graphene can be substantially influenced by etching, deliberately induced in a transmission electron microscope. It is achieved primarily by overcoming the threshold energy for defect formation by controlling the kine ...
A recent 2D spinFET concept proposes to switch electrostatically between two separate sublayers with strong and opposite intrinsic Rashba effects, exploiting the spin-layer-locking mechanism in centrosymmetric materials with local dipole fields. Here, we p ...
We conducted atomic-scale scanning tunneling microscopy of a graphene nanosheet on graphite. In addition to a rhombus lattice representing the (root 3x root 3)R30 degrees superstructure, we resolved another quadrangle lattice similar to a rectangle in the ...
Cutting edge electron microscopes allow to probe the optical excitations in nanostructures with subangstrom spatial and femtosecond temporal resolution. In this study we discuss the prospects of probing the ultrafast out-of-equilibrium dynamics of plasmoni ...
Two-dimensional (2D) crystals such as graphene or transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) are a fascinating class of quantum materials. These compounds are obtained isolating the single atomic sheets that normally form bulk layered crystals, and the reduc ...
The goal of this thesis is to explore the "neglected" third dimension of layered materials, by studying the interlayer charge dynamics through dc conductivity, optical spectroscopy and ab-initio calculations. This project was designed to respond to the gro ...