arXiv subjects

Kuijuan Jin

Publications and source records attributed to Kuijuan Jin.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Observation of square-like moire lattice and quasicrystalline order in twisted rock-salt nitrides

Twistronics, which exploits moire modulation of lattice and electronic structures in twisted bilayers, has emerged as a powerful approach to engineer novel quantum states. Recent efforts have expanded beyond two dimensional van der Waals (vdWs) crystals to more complex, strongly correlated materials, where interfacial moire effects can dominate physical properties. Here we demonstrate a generalizable route to fabricate twisted bilayers of transition metal nitrides with vdWs like interfaces, using freestanding CrN membranes as a model system. Twisted bilayer CrN (tCrN) is realized by employing cubic alkaline earth metal monoxides as sacrificial layers, enabling the assembly of clean, controllable interfaces. Electron ptychography reveals well defined, periodic square moire superlattices in tCrN. For a twist angle of 16.3 degree, we identify a nearly commensurate moire lattice with coincident Cr columns, whereas at 45 degree we uncover localized octagonal quasicrystalline order with clear self-similarity. These results establish a practical platform for twisted TMNs and open avenues to explore moire-induced atomic configurations and emergent correlated phenomena in nitride based heterostructures.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2025

Unusual strain relaxation and Dirac semimetallic behavior in epitaxial antiperovskite nitrides

Antiperovskite nitrides (X3AN) are the structural analogues to perovskite oxides, while their epitaxial growth and electronic properties remain largely unexplored. We report the successful synthesis of Ni3InN thin films on substrates with different lattice constants. First-principles phonon calculations confirm the dynamical stability of cubic phase Ni3InN, providing the basis for epitaxial synthesis. High-resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy reveals coherent (001)-oriented interfaces when Ni3InN is grown on LaAlO3 and SrTiO3, while an unexpected (011)-orientation forms on DyScO3, aligning with surface-energy predictions. Transport measurements highlight a strain-controlled Fermi-liquid behavior, correlated with variations in the Ni-3d bandwidth and hybridization. Band structure calculations reveal a dual character near the Fermi level: a high-mobility Dirac-like band and a Ni-3d manifold that drives strange-metal transport with a reduced slope compared to oxide perovskites. The formal Ni valence (+2/3) places Ni3InN in an overdoped correlated-metal regime, distinguishing from most perovskite oxides. This positions antiperovskite nitrides as a promising platform for investigating overdoped Fermi liquids and strange-metal behavior.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2025

A single-phase epitaxially grown ferroelectric perovskite nitride

The integration of ferroelectrics with semiconductors is crucial for developing functional devices, such as field-effect transistors, tunnel junctions, and nonvolatile memories. However, the synthesis of high-quality single-crystalline ferroelectric nitride perovskites has been limited, hindering a comprehensive understanding of their switching dynamics and potential applications. Here we report the synthesis and characterizations of epitaxial single-phase ferroelectric cerium tantalum nitride (CeTaN3) on both oxides and semiconductors. The polar symmetry of CeTaN3 was confirmed by observing the atomic displacement of central ions relative to the center of the TaN6 octahedra, as well as through optical second harmonic generation. We observed switchable ferroelectric domains in CeTaN3 films using piezo-response force microscopy, complemented by the characterization of square-like polarization-electric field hysteresis loops. The remanent polarization of CeTaN3 reaches approximately 20 uC/cm2 at room temperature, consistent with theoretical calculations. This work establishes a vital link between ferroelectric nitride perovskites and their practical applications, paving the way for next-generation information and energy-storage devices with enhanced performance, scalability, and manufacturability.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2025

Designing Optimal Distorted-Octahedra Superlattices for Strong Topological Hall Effect

Topologically protected spin states hold great promise for applications in next generation of memory circuits and spintronic devices. These intriguing textures typically emerge in bulk materials or heterostructures with broken inversion symmetry, accompanied by an enhanced Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI). In this study, we successfully induced the topological Hall effect (THE) in atomically designed (DyScO3)n/(SrRuO3)n (DnSn) superlattices over a significant range of temperatures (10~120K) and thicknesses (16~40nm). Using magnetic force microscopy (MFM), we observed the formation and stability of magnetic domains, such as topological skyrmions. By precisely controlling the interlayer thickness (n) and biaxial strain, we elucidated the mechanisms underlying the modulation and induction of magnetic topological states. Supporting evidence was provided by scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) and X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), thereby lending further credence to our conclusions. These heterostructures offer a universal method for exploring topological phenomena driven by distorted octahedra, while enhancing the integrability and addressability of topologically protected functional devices.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2025

Deteriorated Interlayer Coupling in Twisted Bilayer Cobaltites

A wealth of remarkable behaviors is observed at the interfaces between magnetic oxides due to the coexistence of Coulomb repulsion and interatomic exchange interactions. While previous research has focused on bonded oxide heterointerfaces, studies on magnetism in van der Waals interfaces remain rare. In this study, we stacked two freestanding cobaltites with precisely controlled twist angles. Scanning transmission electron microscopy revealed clear and ordered moiré patterns, which exhibit an inverse relationship with the twist angle. We found that the Curie temperature in the twisted region is reduced by approximately 13 K compared to the single-layer region using nitrogen-vacancy (NV) magnetometry. This phenomenon may be related to the weakening of the orbital hybridization between oxygen ions and transition metal ions in the unbonded interfaces. Our findings suggest a potential avenue for modulating magnetic interactions in correlated systems through twist, providing opportunities for the discovery of unknown quantum states.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2025

Charge transfer induced insulating state at antiperovskite/perovskite heterointerfaces

Heterointerfaces have been pivotal in unveiling extraordinary interfacial properties and enabling multifunctional material platforms. Despite extensive research on all-oxide interfaces, heterointerfaces between different material classes, such as oxides and nitrides, remain underexplored. Here we present the fabrication of a high-quality Dirac metal antiperovskite Ni3InN, characterized by an extremely low temperature coefficient of resistivity, approximately 1.8*10^-8 Ω*cm/K, over a broad temperature range. Atomically sharp heterointerfaces between Ni3InN and SrVO3 were constructed, revealing intriguing interfacial phenomena. Leveraging layer-resolved scanning transmission electron microscopy and electron energy loss spectroscopy, we identified pronounced charge transfer across the well-ordered interface. Remarkably, this interfacial electron transfer from Ni3InN to SrVO3 induces an insulating interfacial layer and an emergent magnetic moment within the Ni3InN layer, consistent with first-principles calculations. These findings pave the way for novel electronic and spintronic applications by enabling tunable interfacial properties in nitride/oxide systems.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2025

Full Polarization Control of Photons with Evanescent Wave Coupling in the Ultra Subwavelength Gap of Photonic Molecules

Polarization of photons plays a key role in quantum optics and light-matter interactions, however, it is difficult to control in nanosystems since the eigenstate of a nanophotonic cavity is usually fixed and linearly polarized. Here we reveal polarization control of photons using photonic molecules (PMs) that host supermodes of two coupled nanobeam cavities. In contrast to conventional PMs in a 2D photonic crystal slab, for the two 1D photonic crystal nanobeam cavities the shift and gap between them can be tuned continuously. With an ultra subwavelength gap, the coupling between the two cavities is dominated by the evanescent wave coupling in the surrounding environment, rather not the emission wave coupling for conventional PMs. As such, non-Hermiticity of the system becomes pronounced, and the supermodes consist of a non-trivial phase difference between bare eigenstates that supports elliptical polarization. We observe that both the polarization degree and polarization angle of the antisymmetric mode strongly depend on the shift and gap between the two cavities, exhibiting polarization states from linear to circular. This full polarization control indicates great potential of PMs in quantum optical devices and spin-resolved cavity quantum electrodynamics.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2024

Confined Magnetization at the Sublattice-Matched Ruthenium Oxide Heterointerface

Creating a heterostructure by combining two magnetically and structurally distinct ruthenium oxides is a crucial approach for investigating their emergent magnetic states and interactions. Previously, research has predominantly concentrated on the intrinsic properties of the ferromagnet SrRuO3 and recently discovered altermagnet RuO2 solely. Here, we engineered an ultrasharp sublattice-matched heterointerface using pseudo-cubic SrRuO3 and rutile RuO2, conducting an in-depth analysis of their spin interactions. Structurally, to accommodate the lattice symmetry mismatch, the inverted RuO2 layer undergoes an in-plane rotation of 18 degrees during epitaxial growth on SrRuO3 layer, resulting in an interesting and rotational interface with perfect crystallinity and negligible chemical intermixing. Performance-wise, the interfacial layer of 6 nm in RuO2 adjacent to SrRuO3 exhibits a nonzero magnetic moment, contributing to an enhanced anomalous Hall effect (AHE) at low temperatures. Furthermore, our observations indicate that, in contrast to SrRuO3 single layers, the AHE of [(RuO2)15/(SrRuO3)n] heterostructures shows nonlinear behavior and reaches its maximum when the SrRuO3 thickness reaches tens of nm. These results suggest that the interfacial magnetic interaction surpasses that of all-perovskite oxides (~5-unit cells). This study underscores the significance and potential applications of magnetic interactions based on the crystallographic asymmetric interfaces in the design of spintronic devices.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2024

Non-orthogonal cavity modes near exceptional points in the far field

Non-orthogonal eigenstates are a fundamental feature of non-Hermitian systems and are accompanied by the emergence of nontrivial features. However, the platforms to explore non-Hermitian mode couplings mainly measure near-field effects, and the far-field behaviour remain mostly unexplored. Here, we study how a microcavity with non-Hermitian mode coupling exhibits eigenstate non-orthogonality by investigating the spatial field and the far-field polarization of cavity modes. The non-Hermiticity arises from asymmetric backscattering, which is controlled by integrating two scatterers of different size and location into a microdisk. We observe that the spatial field overlaps of two modes increases abruptly to its maximum value, whilst different far-field elliptical polarizations of two modes coalesce when approaching an exceptional point. We demonstrate such features experimentally by measuring the far-field polarization from the fabricated microdisks. Our work reveals the non-orthogonality in the far-field degree of freedom, and the integrability of the microdisks paves a way to integrate more non-Hermitian optical properties into nanophotonic systems.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2023

Controllable Spin-Resolved Photon Emission Enhanced by Slow-Light Mode in Photonic Crystal Waveguides on Chip

We report the slow-light enhanced spin-resolved in-plane emission from a single quantum dot (QD) in a photonic crystal waveguide (PCW). The slow light dispersions in PCWs are designed to match the emission wavelengths of single QDs. The resonance between two spin states emitted from a single QD and a slow light mode of a waveguide is investigated under a magnetic field with Faraday configuration. Two spin states of a single QD experience different degrees of enhancement as their emission wavelengths are shifted by combining diamagnetic and Zeeman effects with an optical excitation power control. A circular polarization degree up to 0.81 is achieved by changing the off-resonant excitation power. Strongly polarized photon emission enhanced by a slow light mode shows great potential to attain controllable spin-resolved photon sources for integrated optical quantum networks on chip.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2022

Synthesis of functional nitride membranes using sacrificial water-soluble BaO layers

Transition metal nitrides (TMNs) exhibit fascinating physical properties that hold great potential in future device applications. To stack two-dimensional TMNs with other functional materials that have dissimilar orientations and symmetries requires to separate epitaxial TMNs from the growth substrates. However, the lattice constants of TMNs are not compatible with those of most sacrificial layers, leading to a great challenge to fabricate high-quality single crystalline TMN membranes. In this letter, we report the application of a water-soluble BaO sacrificial layer as a general approach to create freestanding TMN membranes. Taken CrN as an example, the relatively small lattice mismatch and identical cubic structure between BaO and CrN ensure the growth of heterostructures. Millimeter-size CrN membrane allows us to directly observe the planar-view of atomic structure and to correlate its electronic state with intrinsic transport properties. Our work provides the opportunity to fabricate freestanding TMN membranes and the ability to transfer them to arbitrary substrates. The integration of TMN membranes with other materials will stimulate further studies in the emergent phenomena at heterointerfaces.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2022

Single charge control of localized excitons in heterostructures with ferroelectric thin films and two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides

Single charge control of localized excitons (LXs) in two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) is crucial for potential applications in quantum information processing and storage. However, traditional electrostatic doping method with applying metallic gates onto TMDCs may cause the inhomogeneous charge distribution, optical quench, and energy loss. Here, by locally controlling the ferroelectric polarization of the ferroelectric thin film BiFeO3 (BFO) with a scanning probe, we can deterministically manipulate the doping type of monolayer WSe2 to achieve the p-type and n-type doping. This nonvolatile approach can maintain the doping type and hold the localized excitonic charges for a long time without applied voltage. Our work demonstrated that ferroelectric polarization of BFO can control the charges of LXs effectively. Neutral and charged LXs have been observed in different ferroelectric polarization regions, confirmed by magnetic optical measurement. Highly circular polarization degree about 90 % of the photon emission from these quantum emitters have been achieved in high magnetic fields. Controlling single charge of LXs in a non-volatile way shows a great potential for deterministic photon emission with desired charge states for photonic long-term memory.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2022

Atomically engineered cobaltite layers for robust ferromagnetism

Emergent phenomena at heterointerfaces are directly associated with the bonding geometry of adjacent layers. Effective control of accessible parameters, such as the bond length and bonding angles, offers an elegant method to tailor competing energies of the electronic and magnetic ground states. In this study, we construct unit thick syntactic layers of cobaltites within a strongly tilted octahedral matrix via atomically precise synthesis. The octahedral tilt patterns of adjacent layers propagate into cobaltites, leading to a continuation of octahedral tilting while maintaining significant misfit tensile strain. These effects induce severe rumpling within an atomic plane of neighboring layers triggers the electronic reconstruction between the splitting orbitals. First-principles calculations reveal that the cobalt ions transits to a higher spin state level upon octahedral tilting, resulting in robust ferromagnetism in ultrathin cobaltites. This work demonstrates a design methodology for fine-tuning the lattice and spin degrees of freedom in correlated quantum heterostructures by exploiting epitaxial geometric engineering.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2022

Strong light-matter interactions between gap plasmons and two-dimensional excitons at ambient condition in a deterministic way

Strong exciton-plasmon interaction between the layered two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors and gap plasmons shows a great potential to implement cavity quantum-electrodynamics in ambient condition. However, achieving a robust plasmon-exciton coupling with nanocavity is still very challenging, because the layer area is usually small with conventional approaches. Here, we report on a robust strong exciton-plasmon coupling between the gap mode of bowtie and the excitons in MoS$_2$ layers with gold-assisted mechanical exfoliation and the nondestructive wet transfer techniques for large-area layer. Benefiting from the ultrasmall mode volume and strong in-plane field, the estimated effective exciton number contributing to the coupling is largely reduced. With a corrected exciton transition dipole moment, the exciton numbers are extracted with 40 for the case of monolayer and 48 for 8 layers. Our work paves a way to realize the strong coupling with 2D materials with few excitons at room temperature.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2022

Strain-engineered high-temperature ferromagnetic Oxygen-substituted NaMnF3 from first principles

Using first-principles calculations, we investigated the magnetic, electronic, and structural properties of oxygen-substituted NaMnF3 (NaMnF1.5O1.5) with in-plane biaxial strain. For simplicity, a structure containing an oxygen octahedron is used to explore the underlying physical mechanism. We found that the oxygen octahedron induces a transition from an insulating antiferromagnet to a high-temperature half-metallic ferromagnet. More importantly, the Curie temperature can be significantly enhanced and even might reach room temperature by applying tensile strain. The changing trends of exchange coupling constants with the increasing biaxial tensile strain can be attributed to the cooperative effects of Jahn-Teller distortion and rotation distortion. It is expected that these findings can enrich the versatility of NaMnF3 and make it a promising candidate for spintronic applications.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2021

Ferromagnetic Enhancement in LaMnO3 Films with Release and Flexure

A variety of novel phenomena and functionalities emerge from lowering the dimensionality of materials and enriching the degrees of freedom in modulation. In this work, it is found that the saturation magnetization of LaMnO3 (LMO) films is largely enhanced by 56% after releasing from a brand-new phase of tetragonal strontium aluminate buffer layer, and is significantly increased by 92% with bending films to a curvature of 1 mm-1 using a water-assisted direct-transferring method. Meanwhile, the Curie temperature of LMO films has been improved by 13 K. High-resolution spherical aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy and first-principles calculations unambiguously demonstrate that the enhanced ferromagnetism is attributed to the strengthened Mn-O-Mn super-exchange interactions from the augmented characteristics of the unconventional P21/n structure caused by the out-of-plane lattice shrinking after strain releasing and increased flexure degree of freestanding LMO films. This work paves a way to achieve large-scale and crack-and-wrinkle-free freestanding films of oxides with largely improved functionalities.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2021

Enhanced valley polarization in WS$_2$/LaMnO$_3$ heterostructure

Monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides have attracted great attentions for potential applications in valleytronics. However, the valley polarization degree is usually not high because of the intervalley scattering. Here, we demonstrate a largely enhanced valley polarization up to 80\% in monolayer WS$_2$ under non-resonant excitation at 4.2 K using WS$_2$/LaMnO$_3$ thin film heterostructure, which is much higher than that for monolayer WS$_2$ on SiO$_2$/Si substrate with a valley polarization of 15\%. Furthermore, the greatly enhanced valley polarization can be maintained to a high temperature of about 160 K with a valley polarization of 53\%. The temperature dependence of valley polarization is strongly correlated with the thermomagnetic curve of LaMnO$_3$, indicating an exciton-magnon coupling between WS$_2$ and LaMnO$_3$. A simple model is introduced to illustrate the underlying mechanisms. The coupling of WS$_2$ and LaMnO$_3$ is further confirmed with an observation of two interlayer excitons with opposite valley polarizations in the heterostructure, resulting from the spin-orbit coupling induced splitting of the conduction bands in monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides. Our results provide a pathway to control the valleytronic properties of transition metal dichalcogenides by means of ferromagnetic van der Waals engineering, paving a way to practical valleytronic applications.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2021

Chiral photonic circuits for deterministic spin transfer

Chiral quantum optics has attracted considerable interest in the field of quantum information science. Exploiting the spin-polarization properties of quantum emitters and engineering rational photonic nanostructures has made it possible to transform information from spin to path encoding. Here, compact chiral photonic circuits with deterministic circularly polarized chiral routing and beamsplitting are demonstrated using two laterally adjacent waveguides coupled with quantum dots. Chiral routing arises from the electromagnetic field chirality in waveguide, and beamsplitting is obtained via the evanescent field coupling. The spin- and position-dependent directional spontaneous emission are achieved by spatially selective micro-photoluminescence measurements, with a chiral contrast of up to 0.84 in the chiral photonic circuits. This makes a significant advancement for broadening the application scenarios of chiral quantum optics and developing scalable quantum photonic networks.

physics.optics↗