Scale wires and layers down to the real bottom

" Tailoring materials in atomic scale is definitely the ever-lasting dream for all materials scientists. While there are various approaches towards such ultimate control over materials, we are interested in single atomic layers or single atomic wires fabricated on solid surfaces through self-organization. In particular, we have investigated metallic atomic wires and layers on silicon substrates where the prototypical physics of low-dimensional electrons can be studied. For metallic atomic wire systems, we have discovered a series of metal-insulator transitions into charge density wave ground states. The intriguing nature of these phase transitions will be discussed and our approach to tailoring atomic wires further will be introduced. For metallic atomic layers, we recently realized a mass-less electronic band, whose effective mass is comparable to graphene and topological insulators, at the interface between the metallic layer and the silicon substrate. The opportunity provided by such exotic two dimensional electrons will be discussed.


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