Saien Xie
Princeton University, NJ·Materials Science·Early-career
As computers grow larger and more complex, engineers look for materials that offer new properties and better performance. Semiconductors only a few atoms thick behave differently from ordinary bulk materials, which opens new ways to tune their electronic and optical properties at very small scales.
- Fields
Materials Science
Chemistry
Physics
- Topics
two-dimensional materials
2D materials
transition metal dichalcogenides
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2031
What they work on
- Determine how thermodynamic and kinetic factors govern the formation of epitaxial interfaces, crystal-aligned boundaries, between two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides with controlled composition and structure at nanometer length scales.
- Investigate how strain and interface energetics in atomically thin heterostructures differ from those in conventional thin films, and how they shape the resulting material structure.
- Combine synthesis with structural and property characterization, plus analysis and modeling, to link growth conditions, atomic structure and the electronic and optical behavior of 2D heterostructures.
More about the research
This project asks how to grow such atomically thin materials so that neighboring regions, only nanometers apart, have deliberately different compositions and electronic properties.
Why it matters
Design rules for growing atomically thin semiconductors with precisely patterned regions could help engineers build smaller and more capable electronic and optical devices. Over time, such principles could support chip makers and device developers looking for materials beyond conventional bulk semiconductors as computing systems continue to grow in scale and complexity.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
You Zhou
University of Maryland, MD·Physics·Early-career
Fabricate coupled bilayers of transition metal dichalcogenide semiconductors and test how their atomic structure and stacking affect the stability of Wigner crystals, ordered patterns of electrons.
Daniel Bediako
University of California-Berkeley, CA·Chemistry·Early-career
Synthesize vanadium-intercalated TMD crystals, which have vanadium atoms inserted between layers, that are predicted to be altermagnets, using solid-state synthesis and crystal growth.
Wanyi Nie
University at Buffalo, NY·Materials Science
Grow and characterize heterostructures of chiral hybrid perovskites and 2D transition metal dichalcogenides to study interlayer excitons, electron–hole pairs spanning the interface.
The school
Princeton University: 26 labs on PI Pages, $559M a year on research, 403 research doctorates a year.
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