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Lattices of odd-layered two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) such as WSe2 are non-centrosymmetric, and thus could possess linear piezoelectricity that is attractive for applications such as nanoelectromechanical…
HfO$_2$- and ZrO$_2$-based ferroelectric thin films have emerged as promising candidates for the gate oxides of next generation electronic devices. Recent work has experimentally demonstrated that a tetragonal/orthorhombic (t/o-) phase…
Ultrashort pulsed laser annealing is an efficient technique for crystallizing amorphous semiconductors with the possibility to obtain polycrystalline films at low temperatures, below the melting point, through non-thermal processes. Here, a…
Direct, tunable coupling between individually assembled graphene layers is a next step towards designer two-dimensional (2D) crystal systems, with relevance for fundamental studies and technological applications. Here we describe the…
The sticking of a soft polystyrene colloidal particle to a planar glass plate was studied by a microrheological technique using an optical tweezer to trap the particle and a piezoelectric-stage to position the plate and to sinusoidally…
Superconducting films of alpha-Ta are promising candidates for the fabrication of advanced superconducting qubits. However, alpha-Ta films suffer from many growth-induced structural inadequacies that negatively affect their performance. We…
This research investigates the structural, topological, electrical and optical properties of pulsed laser deposited polycrystalline BiFeO3 thin films on silicon and glass substrate at varying deposition temperatures ranging from 400 degC to…
Second harmonic (SH) radiation can only be generated in non-centrosymmetric bulk crystals under the electric-dipole approximation. Nonlinear thin films made from bulk crystals are technologically challenging because of complex and high…
Superconductivity was recently found in the simple tetragonal FeSe structure. Recent studies suggest that FeSe is unconventional, with the symmetry of the superconducting pairing state still under debate. To tackle these problems, clean…
Ba(Fe1-xCox)2As2 is the most tunable of the Fe-based superconductors (FBS) in terms of acceptance of high densities of self-assembled and artificially introduced pinning centres which are effective in significantly increasing the critical…
Polymorphic phases and collective phenomena - such as charge density waves (CDWs) - in transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) dictate the physical and electronic properties of the material. Most TMDs naturally occur in a single given…
We report on a systematic study of strain effects on the transport properties and the ferromagnetic transition temperature $T_{c}$ of high-quality La$_{0.9}$Sr$_{0.1}$MnO$_{3}$ thin films epitaxially grown on (100) SrTiO$_{3}$ substrates.…
Quantum materials represent one of the most promising frontiers in the quest for faster, lightweight, energy efficient technologies. However, their inherent complexity and rich phase landscape make them challenging to understand or…
Chalcogenide materials are an important class of phase change material (PCMs) owing to their employment in digital memory solutions. Chalgogenide materials have applications in phase change random access memory (PCRAM) due to their ability…
Bulk single-crystal relaxor-ferroelectrics, like Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbTiO3 (PMN-PT), are widely known for their large piezoelectricity. This is attributed to polarization rotation which is facilitated by the presence of various crystal…
We demonstrate the successful fabrication on CaF$_2$ substrates of FeSe$_{1-x}$Te$_{x}$ films with $0 \le x \le 1$, including the region of $0.1 \le x \le 0.4$, which is well known to be the "phase-separation region", via pulsed laser…
The III-Se layered semiconductors, including InSe and GaSe, are promising optoelectronic materials due to their relatively high electron mobilities at room temperature, nonlinear optical responses, ferroelectricity, self-passivated van der…
Superconducting NbTiN thin films have garnered extensive interest due to their use in Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detectors (SNSPDs) and other low-temperature applications for potential use in quantum computing and…
The parallel magnetic field tuned two-dimensional superconductor-insulator transition has been investigated in ultrathin films of amorphous Bi. The resistance is found to be independent of temperature on both sides of the transition below…
Due to their high kinetic inductance, highly disordered superconducting thin films are a potential hardware for the realization of compact, low-noise elements in cryoelectronic applications. However, high disorder typically results in…