Recently, Chinese scientists have developed a new technique called“Paraffin-assisted immersion method”, which successfully makes two-dimensional materials“Roll up” to produce graphene rolls with controllable chirality, it lays a solid foundation for the future development of quantum computing and spintronic devices.
The research, led by Tianjin University Professors Hu Wenping, Lei Shengbin, Li Qifeng and associate professor Sheng Yongtao, was recently published in the prestigious journal Nature Materials.
Chirality refers to the property that an object and its mirror image can not completely coincide, just as the left and right hands of people are mirror images of each other but can not completely coincide. In the field of materials science, the development of chiral materials is of great significance to promote the development of cutting-edge technologies such as optical devices, Spintronics and quantum computing.
As a classical two-dimensional material, graphene has high electrical conductivity, high mechanical strength and strong chemical stability, but graphene itself is achiral. Scientists have tried to introduce chirality into graphene and other two-dimensional materials by curling and other methods to explore their potential new properties and applications. At present, chiral two-dimensional materials with Spintronics function are very limited, and there is no universal preparation method.
To solve this problem, the Tianjin University team developed a new technique called paraffin-assisted immersion, which allows graphene to be rolled at a controlled angle to create rolls of graphene with specific chirality.
The experimental results show that the prepared left-handed and right-handed graphene coils exhibit significant optical activity and excellent spin selectivity effect. By precisely controlling the chirality angle, the researchers also achieved chirality-induced spin-selective manipulation, which makes graphene rolls unique for Spintronics applications.
In the future, the technology is expected to achieve unique functions beyond traditional carbon materials in fields such as spintronic devices, quantum computing, optical devices and materials science, Lei said.