Viktor Zolyomi

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Nanoscale materials science has been dominated by graphene for the past ten
years. The presentation will discuss the way forward by looking at a number of
emerging novel materials that are expected to define the next decade of
research in two-dimensional materials. The presentation will focus on two
classes of semiconducting nanomaterials: hexagonal chalcogenides and
silicene/germanene derivatives.

Hexagonal gallium chalcogenides and indium chalcogenides are structurally
quite similar to transition metal dichalcogenides while exhibiting very unique
electronic properties. Their valence band will be discussed with emphasis on
their use to engineer a very robust Lifshitz transition, and their optical
properties will be examined to project their future use as UV photodetectors
[1,2,3].

Silicane and germanane are fully hydrogenated covalent derivatives of silicene
and germanene, respectively. Their stability will be discussed and their
electronic structure presented. The talk will show that a tight-binding
description of their valence and conduction bands requires the inclusion of
second-nearest neighbor interaction and present a model with parameters
obtained from first principles [4,5].


[1] Zólyomi, V.; Drummond, N. D.; Fal'ko, V. I.; Phys. Rev. B 87, 195403
(2013)

[2] Liu, F. C.; Shimotani, H.; Shang, H.; Kanagasekaran, T.; Zólyomi, V.;
Drummond, N. D.; Fal'ko, V. I.; Tanigaki, K.; ACS Nano 8, 752-760 (2014)

[3] Zólyomi, V.; Drummond, N. D.; Fal'ko, V. I.; arXiv:1403.4389

[4] Drummond, N. D.; Zólyomi, V.; Fal'ko, V. I.; Phys. Rev. B 85, 075423
(2012)

[5] Zólyomi, V.; Wallbank, J. R.; Fal'ko, V. I.; 2D Mater. 1, 011005 (2014)

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Lancaster University
Seminar Room of the Institute of Physics II
Contact: Alexander Grueneis