The ultimate importance of any material or system often depends on how its various properties can be controllably tuned to provide application-specific properties. In bulk systems, such tunability can be obtained, using small quantities of impurities (doping), or mixed composition systems such as semiconductor alloys. Admixing atoms can also give rise to exciting emergent phenomena such as high-temperature superconductivity, charge-ordering, and topological insulators. With the advent of the new breed of atomically thin, or 2D materials, it is imperative that admixing of atoms in a purely 2D plane is also explored. Owing to the presence of a range of layered materials, a variety of atomically thin materials have been demonstrated to stably exist in nature, in well-defined crystalline form. While the properties of these materials do have a broad range, these are fixed due to their compositions and crystal structures. True tunability, one that can come from compositional mixing, cannot be expected to derive from exfoliation of layered crystals. Hence, methods for admixing materials in-situ, during synthesis, are required. In this talk, we will present a brief overview of how this field is gradually becoming prominent, and demonstrate a new atomically thin, mixed composition material � comprising of boron, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen in a planar sheet. This exciting new material system shows an unsurpassed range of conductivities, optical properties, and, according to our computational collaborative work, may also have magnetic properties. Well-controlled samples of these are other mixed composition materials can have a significant impact on future energy and power systems.

Mixing atoms in a single layer

247th National Meeting (2014)

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