Student: Anas Siddiqui

Supervisors: Nicholas Hine, Neil Wilson

This project explores the exciting and novel physics of multilayer structures built from 2D materials. 2DMs can undergo dramatic changes in their fundamental physical properties when they are combined into heterostructures, particularly if their lattices are misaligned: an example is how graphene becomes superconducting when the alignment of two layers is “twisted” by specific angles of a few degrees.

This new field of “twistronics” explores how properties of 2D materials can be tailored for specific applications by stacking them together. We will harness unique capabilities of Linear-Scaling DFT to design 2DM heterostructures “ab initio” for future application in electronic devices that combining high performance and ultra-low power usage.

There will be opportunities to use Machine Learning tools to accelerate these simulations, and to develop theoretical spectroscopy methods that enable prediction and interpretation of state-of-the-art experimental results.

Figure: Rendering of a graphene/WSe2/graphite device investigated by Angle-Resolved Photoelectron Spectroscopy.