Nanofabrication of 2D vdW Devices for Studying Correlated Electron Systems

One of the most promising and widely applicable areas of condensed matter physics is the study of van der Waals (vdW) materials such as graphite and hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) that can be exfoliated down to layers of a single atom of thickness to form “2D” materials. These monolayers are a host of many interesting and exotic physical phenomena. In our lab at Villanova University, we build devices out of these 2D materials which exhibit quantum phases under high magnetic fields and low temperatures, such as Wigner Crystals (solid phase of electrons) and the Quantum Hall Effect (quantization of electrical resistance), that occur due to strong electron interactions in the material. Various nanofabrication tools and processes are utilized to build such devices, and we seek to investigate the properties of these quantum phases through transport and high-frequency measurements.