English

Nonlinear optical study of commensurability effects in graphene-hBN heterostructures

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2020-07-03 v1 Materials Science

Abstract

Second-order nonlinear optical response allows to detect different properties of the system associated with the inversion symmetry breaking. Here, we use a second harmonic generation effect to investigate the alignment of a graphene/hexagonal Boron Nitride heterostructure. To achieve that, we activate a commensurate-incommensurate phase transition by a thermal annealing of the sample. We find that this structural change in the system can be directly observed through a strong modification of a nonlinear optical signal. This result reveals the potential of a second harmonic generation technique for probing structural properties of layered systems.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2003.08970,
  title  = {Nonlinear optical study of commensurability effects in graphene-hBN heterostructures},
  author = {E. A. Stepanov and S. V. Semin and C. R. Woods and M. Vandelli and A. V. Kimel and K. S. Novoselov and M. I. Katsnelson},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2003.08970},
  year   = {2020}
}