Cornell and Stanford scientists film atoms twisting in sync under light, revealing new behavior in 2D moiré materials.
A flash of light has turned a sheet of atoms into a dance floor. In a feat of precision physics, researchers from Cornell and Stanford Universities have filmed atoms twisting and untwisting in perfect sync, a choreography that unfolds in just a trillionth of a second.
This motion, invisible to the naked eye, happens in materials only a few atoms thick.These stacked layers, called moiré materials, are known to behave in bizarre ways when slightly twisted, turning ordinary conductors into superconductors or even magnets.Now, scientists have found that light can make these layers move dynamically, potentially allowing real-time control over their quantum properties.To capture this elusive dance, the team used ultrafast electron diffraction, a technique capable of filming atoms as they shift at record-breaking speeds.The Cornell-built instrument, paired with a hypersensitive high-speed detector, caught the atomically thin layers responding to laser pulses with a twisting motion — a movement too fast for traditional tools to detect.Their study reveals that these 2D materials are not static structures as once thought. Instead, they rhythmically flex and twist when struck by light, providing a new way to study and manipulate matter on ultrafast timescales.Filming atoms in motion“People have long known that by stacking and twisting these atomically thin layers, you can change how a material behaves,” said Jared Maxson, professor of physics at Cornell and co-corresponding author.“What’s new here is that we enhance that twist dynamically with light, and actually watch it happen in real time.”Until now, scientists could only infer how moiré materials might react to light. The Cornell-Stanford team became the first to directly observe this motion, watching the layers twist tighter and then spring back — “like a coiled ribbon releasing its energy.”“Previously, researchers thought that once you stack these moiré materials at a fixed angle, the whole structure is fixed,” said Fang Liu, project lead at Stanford.“What we have shown is that it is definitely not fixed at all – the atoms will move.”The researchers relied on Cornell’s custom-built Electron Microscope Pixel Array Detector to record the subtle atomic shifts.Originally meant for still images, EMPAD was used here like a movie camera for atoms. “Most detectors would have blurred out the signal,” Maxson said. “The EMPAD let us capture incredibly subtle features.”A powerful collaborationWhile Cornell developed the imaging tools, Stanford supplied the specially engineered materials. “There’s no way we could have witnessed this phenomenon without combining materials understanding with electron-beam understanding,” Maxson said.Ph.D. graduate Cameron Duncan, who helped design the setup, said: “We were the first to succeed in finding the ultrafast moiré signal because we customized our home-built hardware specifically to enhance its diffraction-resolving power.”The teams plan to test new materials and twist angles next, hoping to better control how light influences quantum behavior in real time.The study appears in Nature.
Atomic Motion Cornell University Light Manipulation Moiré Materials Quantum Materials Stanford University Ultrafast Electron Diffraction
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