image: This diagram depicts the process by which the lone-pair electron ‘chemical scissors’ strategy produces a novel two-dimensional van der Waals oxide. The novel two-dimensional oxide crystals are non-centrosymmetric and have in-plane anisotropy with strong nonlinear optical responses.
Credit: ©Science China Press
Recently, a team led by Dr. Sangen Zhao and Dr. Junhua Luo of Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, proposed a new structural design strategy—using lone pair electrons as ‘chemical scissors’ to prepare 2D van der Waals (vdWs) oxides. As a result, they discovered a stable 2D van der Waals oxide—InSbMoO6 (ISM).
The researchers successfully obtained single-layer ISM samples by mechanical peeling. These ISM sheets exhibit strong in-plane anisotropic Raman and second harmonic generation (SHG) responses, and the SHG response was independent of the parity of the number of layers. In addition, they have significant effective second-order nonlinear susceptibility.
These findings confirm that ISM is a promising 2D material with good air stability and in-plane anisotropic nonlinear optical response. These results provide an effective structural design strategy for developing 2D vdWs crystals with potential integrated photonics applications.
See the article:
Designing a 2D van der waals oxide with lone-pair electrons as chemical scissor
https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwae370
Journal
National Science Review