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Nitrogen doped lutetium hydride has drawn global attention in the pursuit of room-temperature superconductivity near ambient pressure and temperature. However, variable synthesis techniques and uncertainty surrounding nitrogen concentration have contributed to extensive debate within the scientific community about this material and its properties. We used a solid-state approach to synthesize nitrogen doped lutetium hydride at high pressure and temperature (HPT) and analyzed the residual starting materials to determine its nitrogen content. High temperature oxide melt solution calorimetry determined the formation enthalpy of LuH_1.96N_0.02(LHN) from LuH₂and LuN to be −28.4 ± 11.4 kJ/mol. Magnetic measurements indicated diamagnetism which increased with nitrogen content. Ambient pressure conductivity measurements observed metallic behavior from 5 to 350 K, and the constant and parabolic magnetoresistance changed with increasing temperature. High pressure conductivity measurements revealed that LHN does not exhibit superconductivity up to 26.6 GPa. We compressed LHN in a diamond anvil cell to 13.7 GPa and measured the Raman signal at each step, with no evidence of any phase transition. Despite the absence of superconductivity, a color change from blue to purple to red was observed with increasing pressure. Thus, our findings confirm the thermodynamic stability of LHN, do not support superconductivity, and provide insights into the origins of its diamagnetism.

 

Abstract Magnetic transition metal chalcogenides form an emerging platform for exploring spin-orbit driven Berry phase phenomena owing to the nontrivial interplay between topology and magnetism. Here we show that the anomalous Hall effect in pristine Cr 2 Te 3 thin films manifests a unique temperature-dependent sign reversal at nonzero magnetization, resulting from the momentum-space Berry curvature as established by first-principles simulations. The sign change is strain tunable, enabled by the sharp and well-defined substrate/film interface in the quasi-two-dimensional Cr 2 Te 3 epitaxial films, revealed by scanning transmission electron microscopy and depth-sensitive polarized neutron reflectometry. This Berry phase effect further introduces hump-shaped Hall peaks in pristine Cr 2 Te 3 near the coercive field during the magnetization switching process, owing to the presence of strain-modulated magnetic layers/domains. The versatile interface tunability of Berry curvature in Cr 2 Te 3 thin films offers new opportunities for topological electronics. 

Although flakes of two-dimensional (2D) heterostructures at the micrometer scale can be formed with adhesive-tape exfoliation methods, isolation of 2D flakes into monolayers is extremely time consuming because it is a trial-and-error process. Controlling the number of 2D layers through direct growth also presents difficulty because of the high nucleation barrier on 2D materials. We demonstrate a layer-resolved 2D material splitting technique that permits high-throughput production of multiple monolayers of wafer-scale (5-centimeter diameter) 2D materials by splitting single stacks of thick 2D materials grown on a single wafer. Wafer-scale uniformity of hexagonal boron nitride, tungsten disulfide, tungsten diselenide, molybdenum disulfide, and molybdenum diselenide monolayers was verified by photoluminescence response and by substantial retention of electronic conductivity. We fabricated wafer-scale van der Waals heterostructures, including field-effect transistors, with single-atom thickness resolution.