Solid-State Lifshitz-van der Waals Repulsion through Two-Dimensional Materials

The van der Waals (vdW) force is a ubiquitous short-range interaction between atoms and molecules that underlies many fundamental phenomena. Early pairwise additive theories pioneered by Keesom, Debye, and London suggested the force to be monotonically attractive for separations larger than the vdW contact distance. However, seminal work by Lifshitz et al. predicted that quantum fluctuations can change the sign of vdW interactions from attractive to repulsive. Although recent experiments carried out in fluid environment have demonstrated the long-range counterpart the Casimir repulsion, it remains controversial whether the vdW repulsion exists, or is sufficiently strong to alter solid-state properties. Here we show that the atomic thickness and birefringent nature of two-dimensional (2D) materials, arising from their anisotropic dielectric responses, make them a versatile medium to tailor the many-body Lifshitz-vdW interactions at solid-state interfaces. Based on our theoretical prediction, we experimentally examine two heterointerface systems in which the vdW repulsion becomes comparable to the two-body attraction. We demonstrate that the in-plane movement of gold atoms on a sheet of freestanding graphene becomes nearly frictionless at room temperature. Repulsion between molecular solid and gold across graphene results in a new polymorph with enlarged out-of-plane lattice spacings. The possibility of creating repulsive energy barriers in nanoscale proximity to an uncharged solid surface offers technological opportunities such as single-molecule actuation and atomic assembly

Indoor Self-Powered Perovskite Optoelectronics with Ultraflexible Monochromatic Light Source

Self-powered skin optoelectronics fabricated on ultrathin polymer films is emerging as one of the most promising components for the next-generation Internet of Things (IoT) technology. However, a longstanding challenge is the device underperformance owing to the low process temperature of polymer substrates. In addition, broadband electroluminescence (EL) based on organic or polymer semiconductors inevitably suffers from periodic spectral distortion due to Fabry–Pérot (FP) interference upon substrate bending, preventing advanced applications. Here, ultraflexible skin optoelectronics integrating high-performance solar cells and monochromatic light-emitting diodes using solution-processed perovskite semiconductors is presented. n–i–p perovskite solar cells and perovskite nanocrystal light-emitting diodes (PNC-LEDs), with power-conversion and current efficiencies of 18.2% and 15.2 cd A⁻¹, respectively, are demonstrated on ultrathin polymer substrates with high thermal stability, which is a record-high efficiency for ultraflexible perovskite solar cell. The narrowband EL with a full width at half-maximum of 23 nm successfully eliminates FP interference, yielding bending-insensitive spectra even under 50% of mechanical compression. Photo-plethysmography using the skin optoelectronic device demonstrates a signal selectivity of 98.2% at 87 bpm pulse. The results presented here pave the way to inexpensive and high-performance ultrathin optoelectronics for self-powered applications such as wearable displays and indoor IoT sensors.ISSN:0935-9648ISSN:1521-409