Cecilia Y Chen, Samuel L Moore, Rishi Maiti, Jared S Ginsberg, M Mehdi Jadidi, Baichang Li, Sang Hoon Chae, Anjaly Rajendran, Gauri N Patwardhan, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, James Hone, D N Basov, Alexander L Gaeta
Manipulating the nanostructure of materials is critical for numerous applications in electronics, magnetics, and photonics. However, conventional methods such as lithography and laser writing require cleanroom facilities or leave residue. We describe an approach to creating atomically sharp line defects in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) at room temperature by direct optical phonon excitation with a mid-infrared pulsed laser from free space. We term this phenomenon "unzipping" to describe the rapid formation and growth of a crack tens of nanometers wide from a point within the laser-driven region...
May 3, 2024: Science Advances