This project focuses on the development of the theoretical understanding of intrinsic electronic processes and interactions in transdimensional heterostructures. The transdimensional regime lays in between three (3D) and two (2D) dimensions.
Current research has been largely focused on purely 2D or conventional 3D materials, being guided by a traditional view that only the dimensionality and the chemical composition are important to control the physical properties of quantum materials. The transitional, transdimensional regime has been overlooked. This proposal is intended to fill in this gap by developing a relativistic quantum theory of the spin-orbit interactions and the associated magneto-optical response for ultrathin plasmonic films of heavy metals such as Au in the transdimensional regime.
In ultrathin plasmonic films of controlled thickness, the stronger spin-orbit interactions of heavy metals can lead to sizable intrinsic pseudomagnetic effects such as vector polarizability, making the spatially dispersive nonlocal dielectric response tensor nonreciprocal and the film optically active, or gyrotropic. This can result in novel parity-time symmetry-breaking phenomena controlled by the film thickness, which could further develop the general field of plasmonics and metasurfaces. The program proposed is directly relevant to the national priority Materials Genome Initiative.