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Bold ideas that solve the world’s energy needs.
Making Quantum "Waves" In Ultrathin Materials
by Theresa Duque
Wavelike, collective oscillations of electrons known as “plasmons” are very important for determining the optical and electronic properties of metals.
In atomically thin 2D materials, plasmons have an energy that is more useful for applications, including sensors and communication devices, than plasmons found in bulk metals. But determining how long plasmons live and whether their energy and other properties can be controlled at the nanoscale (billionths of a meter) has eluded many.

Now, as reported in the journal ​Nature Communications, a team of researchers co-led by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) – with support from the Department of Energy’s Center for Computational Study of Excited-State Phenomena in Energy Materials (C2SEPEM) – has observed long-lived plasmons in a new class of conducting transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) called “quasi 2D crystals.”
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Illustration of plasmon waves created by an ultrafast laser coupled to an atomic force microscopy tip. The plasmon waves are shown as concentric red and blue rings moving slowly across an atomically thin layer of tantalum disulfide.
​(Felipe da Jornada/Berkeley Lab)
To understand how plasmons operate in quasi 2D crystals, the researchers characterized the properties of both nonconductive electrons as well as conductive electrons in a monolayer of the TMD tantalum disulfide. Previous studies only looked at conducting electrons. “We discovered that it was very important to carefully include all the interactions between both types of electrons,” said C2SEPEM Director Steven Louie, who led the study. Louie also holds titles as senior faculty scientist in the Materials Sciences Division at Berkeley Lab and professor of physics at UC Berkeley.
The researchers developed sophisticated new algorithms to compute the material’s electronic properties, including plasmon oscillations with long wavelengths, “as this was a bottleneck with previous computational approaches,” said lead author Felipe da Jornada, who was a postdoctoral researcher in Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division at the time of the study. Jornada is currently an assistant professor in materials science and engineering at Stanford University.

To the researchers’ surprise, the results from calculations performed by the Cori supercomputer at Berkeley Lab’s National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) revealed that plasmons in quasi 2D TMDs are much more stable – for as long as approximately 2 picoseconds, or 2 trillionths of a second – than previously thought.
Their findings also suggest that plasmons generated by quasi 2D TMDs could enhance the intensity of light by more than 10 million times, opening the door for renewable chemistry (chemical reactions triggered by light), or the engineering of electronic materials that can be controlled by light.
Plasmons generated by quasi 2D TMDs could enhance the intensity of light by more than 10 million times.
In future studies, the researchers plan to investigate how to harness the highly energetic electrons released by such plasmons upon decay, and if they can be used to catalyze chemical reactions.

Lede Xian and Angel Rubio of the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter in Hamburg, Germany, contributed to the study. NERSC is a DOE Office of Science User Facility located at Berkeley Lab. This study was supported by the Center for Computational Study of Excited-State Phenomena in Energy Materials (C2SEPEM) funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences. Additional support was provided by the National Science Foundation and the European Research Council.


Reprinted with permission. Read the original article.

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  • Members Login >>
    • Energy Today Archive >
      • Leading Change
      • Zero Emissions
      • Interactive Map
      • Floating Wind
      • Quick Hits
      • Steven Chu
      • Dan Poneman
      • Melanie Kenderdine
      • Chris Gould
      • UNSDSN
      • Data as a Tool
      • Change Through Organizing
      • MK Dorsey
      • Social Impact Start-Ups
      • Social Impact Entrepreneurs
      • A Network for the Heartland
      • Ecosystem Maps
      • Clean Energy By 2035
      • Bioremediation
      • Energy Storage-Video
      • Geothermal Energy
      • Commodity Chemical
      • PM Careers In Cleantech
      • Critical Breakthroughs
      • Losing Our Way
      • The Third Rail
      • Mapping the Seas
      • Low-Carbon Midwest
      • Smart Grid
      • Decarbonization
      • Getting to Zero
      • Climate Risk and Response
      • Our Infrastructure Is Being Built For a Climate That's Already Gone
      • Energy History
      • Battery Recycling
      • Quantum Waves
      • Coal REE
      • Fueling Big Rigs
      • Sandia Initiatives
      • Natural Gas Revolution
      • Duck Chart
      • Carbon Crossroads
      • Electric Cars
      • Energy Jobs Coalition
      • Indispensable Electricity
      • Post-Pandemic Predictions
      • Building Infrastructure
      • De-Prioritizing Cars
      • Vicki Hollub
      • Emily Kirsch
      • Lise Meitner
      • Lets Listen
      • COVID-19 and China Air
      • COVID-19 and Oil
      • COVID-19 and Solar
      • COVID-19 and Storage
      • Immorality of Waste
      • Rethinking "Disposable"
      • Second Life of Wind Turbines
      • Rare Earth Elements
      • Coal: Ashes to REM
      • Platinum and Cobalt
      • Geoengineering the Planet
      • An Atmospheric Industry
      • L.A. Hydrogen Plant
      • Pebbles, Sponges and Fans
      • CO2 Into Fuel
      • Superpower
      • The Fate of Food
      • Power Trip
      • Signs on the Earth
      • The Dreamt Land
      • Double Jeopardy
      • 7 Trends In Mineral Mining
      • The Prize - an excerpt
      • REM From Coal
      • The Deep Sea - The Next Gold Rush
      • Geothermal - Salvation or Earthquakes
      • The Myth of the Sustainabie City
      • The Emerging Circular Economy
      • How Cities Can Become More Resilient
      • Prosperity for One, Disaster for Another
      • The Real Energy Revolution
      • Carbon Loophole
      • Op-Ed: CO2 Reduction Thru Biofuels
      • The Sun Also Accelerates
      • Blowing Past the Zettabyte Era
      • Jack Voltaic: A Cyber Simulation Wargame
      • Managing Risk
      • From Russia, With Love
      • Ukraine: The Cyber-War Test Bed
      • 5G Requires A New Approach
      • Climate Change or Just Weather
      • Gone
      • Surge Flooding - Houston
      • Tug of War: Pollution Masks Impact of Climate Change
      • Climate Change Needs the Humanities
      • Nuclear Power: A Dilemma for Climate Change Philanthropy
      • Did California Trump the Clean Air Rollback
      • A Redundancy Dilemma
      • Double Jeopardy - a bonus excerpt
      • The War of the Currents
      • There Will Be Buyouts
      • Space Research Can Save the Planet
      • California's Oil Hypocrisy
      • Robert Merton
      • Africa: The New O&G Frontier
      • Why Oil Markets Aren't Reacting
      • Capitalism and Climate Change
      • The Frackers
      • Double Jeopardy
      • The Grid
      • Designing Climate Solutions
      • Making Tech Miracles
      • Best In Snow
      • Plastic Do-Over
      • The New Nuclear
      • Global Energy Insecurity
      • Renewable Energy and Geopolitics
      • The Myth of Energy Security
      • Residential Storage Security
      • An Insecure GND
      • Water, Food and Energy Security
      • The Transformation of the O&G Sector
      • Wild Fire
      • Ocean Pollution At High-Tide
      • CC's Fuzzy Math
      • A Climate Casualty of a Different Kind
      • Plants Store CO2 Too
      • 45Q for CarbonTech
      • CC's Potential Pitfalls
      • Klaus’s wacky idea
      • Permitting Geological Sequestration
      • A New Era of Energy Innovation
      • Investment in O&G Set to Soar
      • Old Capital Strategies, New Thinking
      • BofA Builds Green Revolution
      • We'd Rather Quit OPEC...
      • One Belt, One Road, No Plan
      • Coal fight turns ugly
      • As the World Warms
      • Oil Diplomacy
      • George Mitchell
      • Nicole Poindexter
      • Dan Kammen
      • Regina Mayor
      • Jessica Matthews
      • Bonus: Refining Reducing
      • Bonus: Energy Investment Trends
      • Bonus: The US has lost the rare earths
      • Bonus: Fossil-tech survey results
      • Bonus article: The New Age of Electricity
      • Bonus - Plan B: Geoengineering
      • Bonus: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - Fossil-Tech
      • Bonus: Cyber Attack Timeline
      • Bonus: Employees - Cyber Threats and Assets
      • Bonus: Transportation, Jetson's Style
      • Bonus Article for Members
      • Bonus article - Infrastructure Failure
      • Bonus: Hydrogen Fuel From Coal
      • Bonus: Cities Not Meeting Targets
      • Bonus: Carbon Sequestering Fungi
      • Bonus: The Earthshot Prize
      • Bonus: A Radioactive Discovery