Research Projects

In this project, we plan to work on the developments of methods for chemical syntheses of molecular moiré superlattices in the liquid media and pursue understanding of their physical and chemical properties and then their application potential. Molecular moiré superlattices are made of low-angular super-stacked two-dimensional (2D) crystalline assemblies of molecules. These superlattices exhibit novel chemical and physical properties owing to the interfaces that are fundamentally different from the 2D crystals. We will particularly focus on investigating their behavior as quantum matter. Although physical methods of stacking of 2D crystals of graphene and other materials have been reported, we recently have - for the first time - fabricated molecule-based moiré superlattices in 2D and early results suggest that these twisted crystalline molecular assemblies could be useful for versatile applications. The assemblies could be made of singular molecules (such as tryptophan or p-phenylenediamine) or inorganic complexes such as zinc phthalate. They could also be made by exfoliation of inorganic crystals such as sodium or potassium chloride or other salts. Thus, both van der Waals and non-van der Waals types of moiré superlattices could be generated in the liquid media. Typical thickness of the superlattice assemblies would be on the order 100 nm that will consist of several layers of such stacked 2D crystals. In addition, we would make efforts to either dope them with protons or metal ions or react with other small ionic or molecular species in order to achieve superior properties. We would especially like to explore the possibilities of using these assemblies for quantum tunneling, sensing, luminescence, spin-filtered electron transport and quantum information. In addition, we will pursue their application potential in chemical reactions (especially electro- chemical reactions related to energy) and disease (especially cancer) theranostics.