Co-Leaders: Jun Zhu & Josh Robinson
Metals and alloys sit at the heart of materials research, but their susceptibility to surface oxidation has impeded their investigation in atomically thin form or as pristine surfaces exposed to the ambient environment. Thus, metals are generally not considered to be electrostatically gateable, rarely strongly polar, and typically not straightforward constituents of complex quantum hetero-structures due to interfacial reactions. IRG1 surmounts these challenges and opens up new areas of fundamental science and application for metals and their alloys through in-situ encapsulation and heterostructure formation that takes advantage of the protected high-energy interface underneath epitaxial graphene and exploits a self-healing effect that yields air-stable atomically thin crystalline metals that are also polar, with exceptional nonlinear optical response and intriguing potential for impacts in quantum devices and biosensing.
The IRG converges expertise in synthesis, optics and spectroscopy, transport, spintronics, device engineering, biosensing, theory and data-driven computation to exploit the unique opportunities in fundamental science and application afforded by air-stable crystalline 2D metals and alloys. These efforts will be accelerated by predictive computation to guide synthesis and application within the expansive compositional design space that CHet endows, and will open new routes to Quantum Leap, enable new sensing modalities for elucidating the Rules of Life, and provide an intriguing venue to Harness the Data Revolution. The team's efforts are organized around quantum and optical property domains, tied together by a central thrust in synthesis of novel structures, compositions and heterostructures of air-stable polar 2D metals.
Featured Publications
H. Yi, Y. Liu, C. Dong, Y. Yang, Z.-J. Yan, Z. Wang, L. Zhou, D. Wu, H. Chen, S. Paolini, B. Xia, B. Zhang, X. Liu, H. Rong, A.G. Wang, S. Mandal, K. Yang, B.N. Katz, L. Hu, J. Liu, T.-L. Lee, V.H. Crespi, Y. Wang, Y. Chen, J.A. Robinson, C.-X. Liu, & C.-Z. Chang, "Orbital Hybridization-Induced Ising-Type Superconductivity in a Confined Gallium Layer". arXiv (2025) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2509.05598.
K. Zhang, R.A. Maniyara, Y. Wang, A. Jain, M.T. Wetherington, T.T. Mai, C. Dong, T. Bowen, K. Wang, S.V. Rotkin, A.R. Hight Walker, V.H. Crespi, J. Robinson, & S. Huang, "Tunable phononic quantum interference induced by two-dimensional metals". Science Advances 11 (32) (2025) https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adw1800.
M.W.J. Liu, K.A. Ulman, B. Zheng, A. Jain, D.J. Heintzelman, K. Wang, W. He, C. Dong, L.-S. Lu, V.H. Crespi, S.Y. Quek, J.A. Robinson, & K.L. Knappenberger, Jr., "Structure-Dependent Electronic Relaxation Dynamics of Two-Dimensional Silver Monolayers". Nano Letters 25 (49), 17145–17151 (2025) https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.5c04723.
N. Sawtarie, J.R. Schrecengost, K. Mekkanamkulam Ananthanarayanan, N.H. Manimaran, S.S. Awate, C. Dong, K. Xu, Y. Wang, J.A. Robinson, N.C. Giebink, & S.K. Fullerton-Shirey, "Permanent Dipole Moment in a Quantum-Confined Two-Dimensional Metal Revealed by Electric Double Layer Gating". Nano Letters 25 (16), 6599–6605 (2025) https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.5c00500.
A. Vera, B. Zheng, W. Yanez, K. Yang, S.Y. Kim, X. Wang, J.C. Kotsakidis, H. El-Sherif, G. Krishnan, R.J. Koch, T.A. Bowen, C. Dong, Y. Wang, M. Wetherington, E. Rotenberg, N. Bassim, A.L. Friedman, R.M. Wallace, C. Liu, N. Samarth, V.H. Crespi, & J.A. Robinson, "Large-Area Intercalated Two-Dimensional Pb/Graphene Heterostructure as a Platform for Generating Spin Orbit Torque". ACS Nano 18 (33), 21985–21997 (2024) https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.4c04075.
C. Li, Y.-F. Zhao, A. Vera, O. Lesser, H. Yi, S. Kumari, Z. Yan, C. Dong, T. Bowen, K. Wang, H. Wang, J.L. Thompson, K. Watanabe, T. Taniguchi, D. Reifsnyder Hickey, Y. Oreg, J.A. Robinson, C.-Z. Chang, & J. Zhu, "Proximity-induced superconductivity in epitaxial topological insulator/graphene/gallium heterostructures". Nature Materials 22, 570–575 (2023) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-023-01478-4.
Acknowledgements
Publications that report work supported by the MRSEC should include an acknowledgement in the form "ABC and XYZ acknowledge support from the Penn State Materials Research Science and Engineering Center Center for Nanoscale Science under National Science Foundation award DMR-2011839." If all co-authors performed their work under MRSEC support, then the ABC/XYZ initials can be omitted. Work produced using MRSEC facilities should include an acknowledgement thereof as described on the facilities pages.