Being atomically thin, the effects of surface adsorption, electrostatic gating, Coulomb interactions, strain, and proximity-induced phenomenon are more pronounced in 2D materials than their 3D counterparts. However, the ‘all surface’ nature of 2D materials also makes these materials extremely sensitive to their surrounding environment, which can be detrimental to their ground state intrinsic properties. This presents a fundamental challenge to the utility of 2D materials for future technological applications. Thus, it is imperative to fully understand the role of extrinsic perturbations on the intrinsic properties of 2D materials. This knowledge will produce two critical breakthroughs in this field: firstly, it elucidates a fundamental understanding of how to systematically remove extrinsic effects in order to fully exploit the intrinsic properties of 2D materials, and secondly, it allows us to tune the properties of 2D materials through extrinsic effects by simply modifying their environment. Our research in this direction is driven by the following open questions in the field of 2D materials:
1) What effects do external perturbations (mechanical stress, chemical environment, electrostatic interactions, etc.) have on the electronic, optical, valley, and spin-related properties of 2D materials?
2) How can we utilize surface modification and substrate engineering to alter the physical properties in 2D materials?
We utilize in-situ magneto-transport and optical measurements to study the quantum phenomenon in mesoscopic sized 2D material devices while doping (or changing the surrounding environment) it with adatoms.
Related selected publications:
1) Jyoti Katoch et. al, "Transport Spectroscopy of Sublattice-Resolved Resonant Scattering in Hydrogen-Doped Bilayer Graphene" accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters (2018).
2) Jyoti Katoch*, Soren Ulstrup*, et. al. "Giant spin-splitting and gap renormalization driven by trions in single-layer WS2/h-BN heterostructures", Nature Physics 14, 355-359 (2018).
3) Jyoti Katoch, "Adatom induced phenomenon in graphene", Invited Review article, Journal of synthetic metals, Volume 210, Part A, Page 68-79 (2015).