Controlling van der Waals Phenomena at the Interface of Atomic and Two-Dimensional Dirac Quantum Matter
Conference Year
January 2020
Abstract
We discuss how the presence of two-dimensional (2D) materials, such as graphene, can significantly affect two intrinsically quantum phenomena that have traditionally served as probes of the fundamental van der Waals (VDW) interaction. First, we show theoretically that Quantum Reflection (QR) of slow atoms off attractive VDW potential tails (due to interactions with 2D materials) is very strongly dependent on material characteristics (such as band structure, doping and screening level, etc). Secondly, we analyze manifestations of such 2D effects for many atoms forming a confined Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) placed near 2D materials, which in turn makes the BEC frequency sensitive to the interface. In both cases we find that relatively small 2D material changes (either by external factors such as strain or doping, or by using gapped 2D materials instead of graphene) can have a profound effect on the above phenomena. In particular, Quantum Reflection at a given energy can experience a significant enhancement or supression (relative to conventionally used bulk materials) making 2D quantum materials an attractive playground for the study of many-body phenomena at the interface of atomic and solid state physics.
*This work received support under NASA grant number 80NSSC19M0143.
Primary Faculty Mentor Name
Valeri Kotov
Faculty/Staff Collaborators
Joseph Turner, Adrian Del Maestro, Valeri Kotov
Status
Undergraduate
Student College
College of Arts and Sciences
Program/Major
Physics
Primary Research Category
Engineering & Physical Sciences
Controlling van der Waals Phenomena at the Interface of Atomic and Two-Dimensional Dirac Quantum Matter
We discuss how the presence of two-dimensional (2D) materials, such as graphene, can significantly affect two intrinsically quantum phenomena that have traditionally served as probes of the fundamental van der Waals (VDW) interaction. First, we show theoretically that Quantum Reflection (QR) of slow atoms off attractive VDW potential tails (due to interactions with 2D materials) is very strongly dependent on material characteristics (such as band structure, doping and screening level, etc). Secondly, we analyze manifestations of such 2D effects for many atoms forming a confined Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) placed near 2D materials, which in turn makes the BEC frequency sensitive to the interface. In both cases we find that relatively small 2D material changes (either by external factors such as strain or doping, or by using gapped 2D materials instead of graphene) can have a profound effect on the above phenomena. In particular, Quantum Reflection at a given energy can experience a significant enhancement or supression (relative to conventionally used bulk materials) making 2D quantum materials an attractive playground for the study of many-body phenomena at the interface of atomic and solid state physics.
*This work received support under NASA grant number 80NSSC19M0143.