Engineering quantum transport in two dimensional heterostructures

When electron systems are constrained to low dimensions, interactions can lead to exciting many body physics and broken symmetry states, exhibiting topological order and emergent behavior. With state of the art technologies in both material science and device fabrication, we are currently in a position where designing novel structures with nanoscale elements in pursuit of new physical phenomena is conceivable. In this talk, I will focus on our efforts in creating custom-made two dimensional electron systems based on graphene and hexagonal boron nitride. Firstly, I will discuss our efforts to engineer spin-orbit effects in graphene. This was spurred by recent theoretical predictions that heavy metal adatoms such as Indium, can introduce spin-orbit coupling in graphene and lead to topological states of matter. In the second part of the talk, I will discuss our ongoing efforts to better understand electron tunneling in Van der Waals heterostructures. We employ atomically thin layers of hexagonal boron nitride as the insulating layer and metals or graphite/graphene as the counter-electrodes. Our results show strong evidence for phonon as well as defect mediated tunneling in such heterostructures.