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arXiv · 1908.03922

Symmetry breakdown in franckeite: spontaneous strain, rippling and interlayer moir\'e

Riccardo Frisenda·Gabriel Sanchez-Santolino·Nikos Papadopoulos·Joanna Urban·Michal Baranowski·Alessandro Surrente·Duncan K. Maude·Mar Garcia-Hernandez·Herre S. J. van der Zant·Paulina Plochocka·Pablo San-Jose·Andres Castellanos-Gomez
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Abstract

Franckeite is a naturally occurring layered mineral with a structure composed of alternating stacks of SnS2-like and PbS-like layers. Although this superlattice is composed of a sequence of isotropic two-dimensional layers, it exhibits a spontaneous rippling that makes the material structurally anisotropic. We demonstrate that this rippling comes hand in hand with an inhomogeneous in-plane strain profile and anisotropic electrical, vibrational and optical properties. We argue that this symmetry breakdown results from a spatial modulation of the van der Waals interaction between layers due to the SnS2-like and PbS-like lattices incommensurability.

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Riccardo Frisenda, Gabriel Sanchez-Santolino, Nikos Papadopoulos, Joanna Urban, Michal Baranowski, Alessandro Surrente, Duncan K. Maude, Mar Garcia-Hernandez, Herre S. J. van der Zant, Paulina Plochocka, Pablo San-Jose, Andres Castellanos-Gomez. 2019-08-11. Symmetry breakdown in franckeite: spontaneous strain, rippling and interlayer moir\'e. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.9b04536

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