Playing Lego on an Atomic Scale

A microscope image of a micro-electronic device on a dark red background. Several yellow gold-plated electrodes lead toward the center, where they connect to a thin, irregular light-green flake. Other scattered shards of colorful materials, which are pink, green, and yellow, are spread around the area. A small red scale bar in the bottom right corner indicates a length of 50µm

Label: Playing Lego on an Atomic Scale
Artist: Wenkai Zheng
Description: Placing a bulk crystal onto a sticky tape, folding and peeling the tape several times can create progressively thinner layers, eventually leading to a single-layer material, so-called 2D crystals. If one considers the 2D crystals to be analogous to Lego blocks, those isolated atomic-scale Legos can be reassembled together as you want by using stacking techniques, which enable us to create novel hybrid structures that display totally new physics and unique functionality. Here is an atomic Lego consisting of five different layers. Metallic electrodes were put on this Lego to probe its electronic properties.
Type: Microscope
Artist Affiliation: Graduate Student
Department: Physics
Area of Research: Condensed matter physics
Date: 2021