Hexatic Phase in Covalent Two-Dimensional Silver Iodide

Abstract

According to the Kosterlitz-Thouless-Halperin-Nelson-Young (KTHNY) theory, the transition from a solid to liquid in two dimensions proceeds through an orientationally ordered liquid-like hexatic phase. However, alternative mixed melting scenarios, in which melting proceeds through the hexatic phase with both continuous and discontinuous transitions, have also been observed in some two-dimensional systems. In this study, we imaged silver iodide embedded in multilayer graphene using time- and temperature-resolved in situ atomic-resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy and nanobeam electron diffraction. We observed the hexatic phase and provide evidence supporting a mixed melting scenario.

References in corpus (22)

• Quantum ESPRESSO: a modular and open-source software project for quantum simulations of materials
• Restoring the density-gradient expansion for exchange in solids and surfaces
• Generalized gradient approximation for solids and their surfaces
• Advanced capabilities for materials modelling with Quantum ESPRESSO
• Optimized norm-conserving Vanderbilt pseudopotentials
• The Computational 2D Materials Database: High-Throughput Modeling and Discovery of Atomically Thin Crystals
• Two-step melting in two dimensions: First-order liquid-hexatic transition
• Deep Learning of Atomically Resolved Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy Images: Chemical Identification and Tracking Local Transformations
• freud: A Software Suite for High Throughput Analysis of Particle Simulation Data
• Control of Radiation Damage in MoS2 by Graphene Encapsulation
• The first-principles phase diagram of monolayer nanoconfined water
• Direct observation of melting in a 2-D superconducting vortex lattice
• Melting of graphene: from two to one dimension
• Quantifying transmission electron microscopy irradiation effects using two-dimensional materials
• Deep Learning Enabled Strain Mapping of Single-Atom Defects in 2D Transition Metal Dichalcogenides with Sub-picometer Precision
• Melting a skyrmion lattice topologically: through the hexatic phase to a skyrmion liquid
• Towards Exotic Layered Materials: 2D Cuprous Iodide
• Attraction tames two-dimensional melting: from continuous to discontinuous transitions
• STEM image analysis based on deep learning: identification of vacancy defects and polymorphs of $Mo{S}_2$
• Light-induced hexatic state in a layered quantum material
• Accurate determination of the translational correlation function of two-dimensional solids
• Spatially resolved x-ray studies of liquid crystals with strongly developed bond-orientational order