In-situ TEM study of graphene-encapsulated thin CrCl<sub>3</sub>

ORAL

Abstract

Chromium Chloride (CrCl3) has recently attracted great interest owing to its unique properties as a 2D magnet.1,2 In this study, we investigate the crystal structure evolution of thin CrCl3 at different temperatures using in-situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM). In order to protect thin CrCl3 from degradation in ambient environment, we encapsulate the CrCl3 flake with exfoliated single- or bi-layer graphene inside a glovebox and transfer the heterostructure onto a TEM grid. In-situ TEM is used to study the phase transition in these CrCl3 TEM samples at low temperatures and structural evolution at high temperatures. Both electron diffraction and high-resolution scanning TEM imaging are carried out for this study. We observe a lack of phase transition in the encapsulated thin CrCl3 even below the phase transition temperature (240K) and robust crystal structure at high temperatures up to 500 °C.
[1] C. Gong, et al., Nature 546.7657 (2017): 270-273.
[2] D. R. Klein, et al., Nature Physics 15.12 (2019): 1255-1260.

*This work was supported by Army Research Office under Grant No. W911NF-17-1-0473; and by the Molecular Foundry of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.

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Presenters

  • Koichi Tanaka

    • Physics Department, University of California, Santa Cruz

Authors

  • Koichi Tanaka

    • Physics Department, University of California, Santa Cruz

  • Belinda Zhen

    • Physics Department, University of California, Santa Cruz

  • Colin Ophus

    • Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
    • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
    • LBNL
    • National Center for Electron Microscopy, Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

  • Jim Ciston

    • Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

  • Carlos Gonzalez

    • Physics Department, University of California, Santa Cruz

  • Zhehao Ge

    • Physics Department, University of California, Santa Cruz
    • Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Cruz
    • University of California, Santa Cruz

  • Arthur Ramirez

    • Physics Department, University of California, Santa Cruz
    • University of California, Santa Cruz

  • Jason C. Lashley

    • Los Alamos National Laboratory

  • Alex K Zettl

    • Physics Department, University of California, Berkeley
    • Department of Physics, University of California
    • Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
    • Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley

  • Jairo Velasco Jr.

    • Physics Department, University of California, Santa Cruz
    • Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Cruz
    • University of California, Santa Cruz

  • Aiming Yan

    • Physics Department, University of California, Santa Cruz