Related papers: Millikelvin-compatible apparatus for studies of qu…
Strain is attracting much interest as a mean to tune the properties of thin exfoliated two-dimensional materials and their heterostructures. Numerous devices to apply tunable uniaxial strain are proposed in the literature, but only few for…
We investigate the effects of strain on superconductivity with particular reference to SrTiO$_3$. Assuming that a ferroelectric mode that softens under tensile strain is responsible for the coupling, an increase in the critical temperature…
We demonstrate the use of a piezoelectric actuator to apply, at low temperatures, uniaxial stress in the plane of a two-dimensional electron system confined to a modulation-doped AlAs quantum well. Via the application of stress, which can…
We present an experimental apparatus specifically designed to investigate the precursors of failure in granular materials. A sample of granular material is placed between a latex membrane and a glass plate. A confining effective pressure is…
Strain is powerful for discovery and manipulation of new phases of matter; however, the elastic strains accessible to epitaxial films and bulk crystals are typically limited to small ($<2\%$), uniform, and often discrete values. This…
Uniaxial strain experiments have become a powerful tool to unveil the character of unconventional phases of electronic matter. Here we propose a combination of the superconducting fitness analysis and density functional theory (DFT)…
Motivated by the possibility of a strain tuning effect on electronic properties of graphene, the semimetal-Mott insulator transition process on the uniaxial honeycomb lattice is numerically studied using Determinant Quantum Monte Carlo. As…
The properties of quantum materials are commonly tuned using experimental variables such as pressure, magnetic field and doping. Here we explore a different approach: irreversible, plastic deformation of single crystals. We show for the…
Strain engineering is a powerful tool for tuning the electronic, magnetic, and topological properties of two-dimensional (2D) materials and thin films - particularly at high values of strain (>3%) where many electronic, magnetic, and…
The mechanical properties of crystalline materials can be substantially modified under confinement. Such modified macroscopic properties are usually governed by the altered microstructures and internal stress fields. Here, we use a parallel…
Semiconductivity and superconductivity are remarkable quantum phenomena that have immense impact on science and technology, and materials that can be tuned, usually by pressure or doping, to host both types of quantum states are of great…
We report on a systematic study of the stress transferred from an electromechanical piezo-stack into GaAs wafers under a wide variety of experimental conditions. We show that the strains in the semiconductor lattice, which were monitored in…
Response to uniaxial stress has become a major probe of electronic materials. Tuneable uniaxial stress may be applied using piezoelectric actuators, and so far two methods have been developed to couple samples to actuators. In one,…
The superconducting and structural properties of elemental strontium metal were investigated under pressures up to 60 GPa while maintaining cryogenic conditions during pressure application. Applying pressure at low temperatures reveals…
A biaxial tensile device for the transport study of layered materials is described. The device is mounted on the standard 24 pin zero force connector and can be moved between various setups. The compact design of the device makes it…
Strain engineering is the art of inducing controlled lattice distortions in a material to modify specific physicochemical properties. Strain engineering is applied for basic fundamental studies of physics and chemistry of solids but also…
An experimental determination of electronic phase diagrams of high-transition temperature (high-$T_c$) superconductors forms the basis for a microscopic understanding of unconventional superconductivity. For most high-$T_c$ superconductors,…
At a temperature of roughly 1\,K, \ce{Sr2RuO4} undergoes a transition from a normal Fermi liquid to a superconducting phase. Even while the former is relatively simple and well understood, the superconducting state is not even after 25…
In this work we use the in-situ accumulated stress monitoring technique to evaluate the evolution of the stress during the strain balancing of InAs/GaAs quantum dots and quantum posts. The comparison of these results with simulations and…
Strontium titanate is a wide-gap semiconductor avoiding a ferroelectric instability thanks to quantum fluctuations. This proximity leads to strong screening of static Coulomb interaction and paves the way for the emergence of a very dilute…