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Optomechanical control of stacking patterns of h-BN bilayer

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Abstract

Few-layer two-dimensional (2D) materials usually have different (meta)-stable stacking patterns, which have distinct electronic and optical properties. Inspired by optical tweezers, we show that a laser with selected frequency can modify the generalized stacking-fault energy landscape of bilayer hexagonal boron nitride (BBN), by coupling to the slip-dependent dielectric response. Consequently, BBN can be reversibly and barrier-freely switched between its stacking patterns in a controllable way. We simulate the dynamics of the stacking transition with a simplified equation of motion and demonstrate that it happens at picosecond timescale. When one layer of BBN has a nearly-free surface boundary condition, BBN can be locked in its metastable stacking modes for a long time. Such a fast, reversible and non-volatile transition makes BBN a potential media for data storage and optical phase mask.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by an Office of Naval Research MURI through grant #N00014-17-1-2661.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA

    Haowei Xu & Ju Li

  2. Center for Advancing Materials Performance from the Nanoscale, State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710049, China

    Jian Zhou

  3. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA

    Yifei Li, Rafael Jaramillo & Ju Li

Authors
  1. Haowei Xu
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  2. Jian Zhou
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  3. Yifei Li
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  4. Rafael Jaramillo
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  5. Ju Li
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Correspondence to Ju Li.

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Xu, H., Zhou, J., Li, Y. et al. Optomechanical control of stacking patterns of h-BN bilayer. Nano Res. 12, 2634–2639 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-019-2500-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-019-2500-y

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