Anisotropic optical properties and emergent phenomena in van der Waals crystals

The growing family of van der Waals crystals has been recognized as a promising platform for the investigation of novel effects and their implementation in a variety of functional devices. The nature of their out-of-plane bonds, i. e., their explicit layered structure, instantly suggests emergence of anisotropic mechanical, optical, and electronic properties at z direction. Furthermore, the families of van der Waals crystals that also naturally possess in-plane anisotropic properties (xy plane), appear more interesting as they significantly enrich the research scope. Though the nature of in-plane bonds in constituent 2D layers of those van der Waals crystals is covalent, their unique crystal structures still stand as one of the major factors behind the anisotropy. Here, we will present our recent findings in orthorhombic and triclinic van der Waals crystals (and heterostructures) that exhibit outstanding anisotropic optical properties and may be of great use for the creation of next-generation optical and nanophotonic devices [1-3].

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Dr. Davit Ghazaryan is an expert in 2D crystals physics. He received his bachelor’s degree in Radiophysics from the Yerevan State University in 2012. In 2014, received his master’s degree in Physics and Mathematics from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and later, in 2018, his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Manchester for his work “Tunnelling Spectroscopy in van der Waals Heterostructures”. Dr. Ghazaryan’s current research interests lie in Condensed matter physics and Materials science studies of graphene and other 2D crystals. Dr. Ghazaryan is currently the Head of Laboratory of Advanced Functional Materials (L-AFM) at Yerevan State University (YSU) and is Visiting Research Associate Professor at the Institute for Functional Intelligent Materials (I-FIM) of National University of Singapore (NUS).