2024 Seed: CryoEM finds complexity in structural evolution of active materials

The realization of hybrid chiral and non-reciprocal excitations necessitates the development of new atomically-precise chiral solid state crystals and the understanding of the fundamental optical/electronic states that arise from the resulting structures

  • Developed the chemistry towards the synthesis of well-defined and sizeable helical inorganic crystals based on the InSeI model phase
  • Stimulus-responsive optical states showed highly sensitive thermochromic behavior, (dEg/dT)max = 1.26 × 10−3 eV K−1 
  • Record electron-phonon coupling strength in the visible range
  • Led to understanding of the materials design rules and discovery of novel helices suitable for material interfacing to access hybrid chiral/non-reciprocal excitations

M. Arguilla, W. Ho, I. Krivorotov, E.M.Y. Lee, J. Romhanyi, R. Wu
(UC Irvine)

Cordova, D. L. M.,…, Wu, R., Arguilla, M. Q., Advanced Materials, 2024, 2312597.