Tag Archives: Bo Zhou

Finding a successor to graphene

The folks at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have announced a ‘natural’ 3D counterpart of graphene in a Jan. 16, 2014 Berkeley Lab news release (also on EurekAlert and on Azonano dated Jan. 17, 2014),

The discovery of what is essentially a 3D version of graphene – the 2D sheets of carbon through which electrons race at many times the speed at which they move through silicon – promises exciting new things to come for the high-tech industry, including much faster transistors and far more compact hard drives. A collaboration of researchers at the U.S Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has discovered that sodium bismuthate can exist as a form of quantum matter called a three-dimensional topological Dirac semi-metal (3DTDS). This is the first experimental confirmation of 3D Dirac fermions in the interior or bulk of a material, a novel state that was only recently proposed by theorists.

The news release provides a description of graphene and the search for alternatives (counterparts),

Two of the most exciting new materials in the world of high technology today are graphene and topological insulators, crystalline materials that are electrically insulating in the bulk but conducting on the surface. Both feature 2D Dirac fermions (fermions that aren’t their own antiparticle), which give rise to extraordinary and highly coveted physical properties. Topological insulators also possess a unique electronic structure, in which bulk electrons behave like those in an insulator while surface electrons behave like those in graphene.

“The swift development of graphene and topological insulators has raised questions as to whether there are 3D counterparts and other materials with unusual topology in their electronic structure,” says Chen [Yulin Chen, a physicist from the University of Oxford who led this study working with Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source (ALS)]. “Our discovery answers both questions. In the sodium bismuthate we studied, the bulk conduction and valence bands touch only at discrete points and disperse linearly along all three momentum directions to form bulk 3D Dirac fermions. Furthermore, the topology of a 3DTSD electronic structure is also as unique as those of topological insulators.”

I’m a bit puzzled as to how this new material can be described as “essentially a 3D version of graphene” as my understanding is that graphene must be composed of carbon and have a 2-dimensiional honeycomb structure to merit the name. In any event, this new material, sodium bismuthate, has some disadvantages but the discovery is an encouraging development (from the news release),

Sodium bismuthate is too unstable to be used in devices without proper packaging, but it triggers the exploration for the development of other 3DTDS materials more suitable for everyday devices, a search that is already underway. Sodium bismuthate can also be used to demonstrate potential applications of 3DTDS systems, which offer some distinct advantages over graphene.

“A 3DTDS system could provide a significant improvement in efficiency in many applications over graphene because of its 3D volume,” Chen says. “Also, preparing large-size atomically thin single domain graphene films is still a challenge. It could be easier to fabricate graphene-type devices for a wider range of applications from 3DTDS systems.”

In addition, Chen says, a 3DTDS system also opens the door to other novel physical properties, such as giant diamagnetism that diverges when energy approaches the 3D Dirac point, quantum magnetoresistance in the bulk, unique Landau level structures under strong magnetic fields, and oscillating quantum spin Hall effects. All of these novel properties can be a boon for future electronic technologies. Future 3DTDS systems can also serve as an ideal platform for applications in spintronics.

While I don’t understand (again) the image the researchers have included as an illustration of their work, I do find the ‘blue jewels in a pile of junk’ very appealing,

Beamline 10.0.1 at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source is optimized for the study of for electron structures and correlated electron systems. (Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt) Courtesy: Berkeley Lab

Beamline 10.0.1 at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source is optimized for the study of for electron structures and correlated electron systems. (Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt) Courtesy: Berkeley Lab

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Discovery of a Three-dimensional Topological Dirac Semimetal, Na3Bi by Zhongkai Liu, Bo Zhou, Yi Zhang, Zhijun Wang, Hongming Weng, Dharmalingam Prabhakaran, Sung-Kwan Mo, Zhi-Xun Shen, Zhong Fang, Xi Dai, and Zahid Hussain. Published Online January 16 2014 Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1245085

This paper is behind a paywall.