Home > Press > When a band falls flat: Searching for flatness in materials: International collaboration, led by DIPC and Princeton, creates a catalogue of materials that could impact quantum technologies
An artistic representation of band dispersions for a given material. Black ribbons represent different bands, while the vertical axis is kinetic energy. At the center we have two flat bands originating from the unique kagome structure of the material. CREDIT © MPI CPfS |
Abstract:
Finding the right ingredients to create materials with exotic quantum properties has been a chimera for experimental scientists, due to the endless possible combinations of different elements to be synthesized.
From now on, the creation of such materials could be less blindfolded thanks to an international collaboration led by Andrei Bernevig, Ikerbasque visiting professor at Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) and professor at Princeton University, and Nicolas Regnault, from Princeton University and the Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris, CNRS, including the participation of Luis Elcoro from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU).
The team conducted a systematic search for potential candidates in a massive haystack of 55,000 materials. The elimination process started with the identification of the so-called flat band materials, that is, electronic states with constant kinetic energy. Therefore, in a flat band the behavior of the electrons is governed mostly by the interactions with other electrons. However, researchers realized that flatness is not the only requirement, because when electrons are too tightly bound to the atoms, even in a flat band, they are not able to move around and create interesting states of matter. “You want electrons to see each other, something you can achieve by making sure they are extended in space. That’s exactly what topological bands bring to the table,” says Nicolas Regnault.
Topology plays a crucial role in modern condensed matter physics as suggested by the three Nobel prizes in 1985, 1997 and 2016. It enforces some quantum wave functions to be extended making them insensitive to local perturbation such as impurities. It might impose some physical properties, such as a resistance, to be quantized or lead to perfectly conducting surface states.
Fortunately, the team has been at the forefront of characterizing topological properties of bands through their approach known as “topological quantum chemistry”, thereby giving them a large database of materials, as well as the theoretical tools to look for topological flat bands.
By employing tools ranging from analytical methods to brute-force searches, the team found all the flat band materials currently known in nature. This catalogue of flat band materials is available online https://www.topologicalquantumchemistry.fr/flatbands with its own search engine. “The community can now look for flat topological bands in materials. We have found, out of 55,000 materials, about 700 exhibiting what could potentially be interesting flat bands,” says Yuanfeng Xu, from Princeton University and the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, one of the two lead authors of the study. "We made sure that the materials we promote are promising candidates for chemical synthesis," emphasizes Leslie Schoop from the Princeton chemistry department. The team has further classified the topological properties of these bands, uncovering what type of delocalized electrons they host.
Now that this large catalogue is completed, the team will start growing the predicted materials to experimentally discover the potential myriad of new interacting states. “Now that we know where to look, we need to grow these materials,” says Claudia Felser from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids. “We have a dream team of experimentalists working with us. They are eager to measure the physical properties of these candidates and see which exciting quantum phenomena will emerge.”
The catalogue of flat bands, published in Nature on 30 March 2022, represents the end of years of research by the team. “Many people, and many grant institutions and universities to which we presented the project said this was too hard and could never be done. It took us some years, but we did it,” said Andrei Bernevig.
The publication of this catalogue will not only reduce the serendipity in the search for new materials, but it will allow for large searches of compounds with exotic properties, such as magnetism and superconductivity, with applications in memory devices or in long-range dissipationless transport of power.
Funding
Funding for the project was primarily provided by an advanced grant of the European Research Council (ERC) at DIPC (SUPERFLAT, ERC-2020-ADG).
####
For more information, please click here
Contacts:
Ingrid Rothe
Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids
Office: +49 351-46463001
Valentina Rodríguez
Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC)
Office: +34 638 877 716
Expert Contacts
Claudia Felser
Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids
B. Andrei Bernevig
Princeton University and Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC)
Nicolas Regnault
Princeton University and Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris, CNRS
Yuanfeng Xu
Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics and Princeton University
Copyright © Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids
If you have a comment, please Contact us.Issuers of news releases, not 7th Wave, Inc. or Nanotechnology Now, are solely responsible for the accuracy of the content.
Related Links |
Related News Press |
News and information
Simulating magnetization in a Heisenberg quantum spin chain April 5th, 2024
NRL charters Navy’s quantum inertial navigation path to reduce drift April 5th, 2024
Discovery points path to flash-like memory for storing qubits: Rice find could hasten development of nonvolatile quantum memory April 5th, 2024
Govt.-Legislation/Regulation/Funding/Policy
NRL charters Navy’s quantum inertial navigation path to reduce drift April 5th, 2024
Discovery points path to flash-like memory for storing qubits: Rice find could hasten development of nonvolatile quantum memory April 5th, 2024
Chemical reactions can scramble quantum information as well as black holes April 5th, 2024
Possible Futures
Discovery points path to flash-like memory for storing qubits: Rice find could hasten development of nonvolatile quantum memory April 5th, 2024
With VECSELs towards the quantum internet Fraunhofer: IAF achieves record output power with VECSEL for quantum frequency converters April 5th, 2024
Discoveries
Chemical reactions can scramble quantum information as well as black holes April 5th, 2024
New micromaterial releases nanoparticles that selectively destroy cancer cells April 5th, 2024
Utilizing palladium for addressing contact issues of buried oxide thin film transistors April 5th, 2024
Materials/Metamaterials/Magnetoresistance
Nanoscale CL thermometry with lanthanide-doped heavy-metal oxide in TEM March 8th, 2024
Focused ion beam technology: A single tool for a wide range of applications January 12th, 2024
Announcements
NRL charters Navy’s quantum inertial navigation path to reduce drift April 5th, 2024
Discovery points path to flash-like memory for storing qubits: Rice find could hasten development of nonvolatile quantum memory April 5th, 2024
Interviews/Book Reviews/Essays/Reports/Podcasts/Journals/White papers/Posters
Simulating magnetization in a Heisenberg quantum spin chain April 5th, 2024
Discovery points path to flash-like memory for storing qubits: Rice find could hasten development of nonvolatile quantum memory April 5th, 2024
Research partnerships
Discovery points path to flash-like memory for storing qubits: Rice find could hasten development of nonvolatile quantum memory April 5th, 2024
Researchers’ approach may protect quantum computers from attacks March 8th, 2024
'Sudden death' of quantum fluctuations defies current theories of superconductivity: Study challenges the conventional wisdom of superconducting quantum transitions January 12th, 2024
The latest news from around the world, FREE | ||
Premium Products | ||
Only the news you want to read!
Learn More |
||
Full-service, expert consulting
Learn More |
||