Researchers observe localized phonon modes at a heterointerface

Phonons--the quasiparticle describing lattice vibrations in solids--directly dictates various properties of solid state systems, such as the thermal conductivity, electron mobility, structural stability and conventional superconductivity. Since in real low-dimensional crystals the phonon structures depends on both real space and reciprocal space, it is very chanlleging to experimentally measure them. In a recently published paper on Nature, a research team from Peking University headed by Prof. ...