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Low-Dimensional Quantum Materials: Synthesis, Properties, and Potential Applications

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Materials Science and Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 February 2026 | Viewed by 276

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructure, School of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China
Interests: MBE growth and interfacial controlling of novel 2D materials and their heterostructures; ARPES studies on the electronic structures of 2D materials; construction, characterization and engineering of novel correlation quantum states in 2D limits

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Guest Editor
School of Physics and Electonic Science, Changsha University of Science and Technology, Changsha 410114, China
Interests: MBE growth and characterization of low-dimensional magnetic quantum nanomaterials; the surfaces, interfaces and electronic structures of low-dimensional organic semiconductive molecular thin films

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Reducing the dimensionality of materials can endow them with many new correlation effects, and thus constitutes an innovative way to explore novel quantum states and phenomena, which show great potential for application in next-generation quantum technologies. Recent advances in controlled epitaxial growth, mechanical exfoliation, and chemical solution-phase synthesis have enabled the fabrication of low-dimensional quantum materials in the form of zero-dimensional quantum dots, one-dimensional nanowires, two-dimensional thin films, and heterostructures. The extraordinary properties of low-dimensional quantum materials—including topological quantum states, charge density waves, unconventional superconductivities, magnetic orders, quantum critical phases, excitonic effects, novel band structures, etc.—have the potential to revolutionize quantum technologies.

This Special Issue welcomes submissions of original research articles and reviews in research areas that may include (but are not limited to) the following:

  1. The fabrication and development of low-dimensional quantum materials and related heterostructures.
  2. The characterization of the structural phases, surfaces, and interfaces of low-dimensional quantum materials.
  3. The observation of novel quantum states and phenomena in low-dimensional quantum materials.
  4. Understanding the correlation effects and quantum states in low-dimensional quantum materials.
  5. Fine-tuning the properties of low-dimensional quantum materials for various applications.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Yi Zhang
Dr. Can Wang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • quantum dots
  • nanowires
  • 2D materials
  • atomically thin crystals
  • moiré superlattices
  • van der Waals heterostructures
  • topological quantum states
  • topological insulators
  • Dirac semimetal
  • Weyl semimetal
  • nodal-line semimetals
  • Majorana fermions
  • quantum spin Hall effect
  • charge density wave
  • excitons
  • valleytronics
  • quantum magnetism
  • superconducting interfaces
  • monolayer semiconductors
  • quantum confinement
  • quantum criticality
  • molecular beam epitaxy
  • chemical vapor deposition
  • scanning tunneling microscopy
  • scanning tunneling spectroscopy
  • angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy
  • scanning tunneling electron microscopy
  • quantum transport

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

11 pages, 4012 KB  
Article
Direct Epitaxy of SnSe2/SnSe Hetero-Bilayer with a Type-III Band Gap Alignment
by Li-Guo Dou, Ruo-Nan Guo, Huiping Li, Cheng-Long Xue, Qian-Qian Yuan, Shu-Hua Yao, Yang-Yang Lv, Yanbin Chen, Wenguang Zhu and Shao-Chun Li
Appl. Sci. 2025, 15(20), 11110; https://doi.org/10.3390/app152011110 - 16 Oct 2025
Abstract
Van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures formed by stacking two distinct semiconductor monolayers have gained increasing research interest because of the various predicted and realized exotic phenomena that are absent in the corresponding monolayers. However, constructing such a vdW hetero-bilayer is very challenging and [...] Read more.
Van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures formed by stacking two distinct semiconductor monolayers have gained increasing research interest because of the various predicted and realized exotic phenomena that are absent in the corresponding monolayers. However, constructing such a vdW hetero-bilayer is very challenging and mostly relies on top-down mechanical methods. Here, we report a direct growth of an SnSe2/SnSe hetero-bilayer by using molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), in which elaborate interface engineering is the key to success. Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) characterization demonstrated the well-defined and uniform moiré patterns, indicating an atomic-scale clean and uniform SnSe2/SnSe interface. In combination with first-principles density functional theory (DFT) calculations, we further unveiled a type-III band gap alignment between the SnSe2 and SnSe monolayers. This work provides a new method for building vertical SnSe2/SnSe hetero-bilayers and a novel platform for exploring functional devices based on the type-III band alignment. Full article
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