Raja Labs
Painting potential landscapes on an atomically thin canvas
Molecular Foundry · Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Light, electrons & atomically thin matter
We are a research group based at the Molecular Foundry and the Kavli Energy NanoScience Institute at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, on the hill just minutes up from the UC Berkeley campus. Our own research drives what we build and learn, and that in turn lets us help our collaborators and Foundry users push the boundaries of their science.
At the nanoscale, a material’s surroundings become part of it. A neighboring layer, a single defect, or a slight twist can shift energy levels and trap excitations. These same features steer how light, heat, charge, and spin carry energy and information, and how they convert from one form to another. We treat these interfaces and local environments as design tools, building and tuning nanoscale quantum materials to create new electronic and optical landscapes. We then use photons and electrons to watch what happens inside them.
We are also building AI co-scientists and closed-loop workflows that connect theory, simulation, and experiment. Our goal is to speed up the discovery of new functionality in quantum materials for energy-efficient electronics and quantum technologies.
Explore the lab
- Research →AI-driven discovery, and imaging excitations in 2D heterostructures with nanometer and ultrafast resolution.
- Facilities →Our 2D heterostructure stacker and optics labs, open to researchers through a Foundry user proposal.
- People →Archana Raja, the postdocs, students and fellows in the group, and where our alumni went next.
- Publications →Every paper from the group, newest first.
- News →New papers and preprints, invited talks, and people joining the group.
- Join Us →Openings for postdocs and students, what life in the lab is like, and answers to common questions.
- Visit →Getting to the Molecular Foundry: shuttle, badge office and site access.
News
All news →Archana attends a DOE Genesis Mission PI meeting at UC Irvine on October 21.
Ambipolar metal-insulator transition in bilayer MoSe₂ posted to arXiv with the Wang and Ma groups.
Archana gives invited talks at Flatlands Beyond Graphene (Dresden) and the Bay Area Light Sources MeV-UED workshop.
Sub-nanoscale visualization of reconstruction-driven moiré exciton localization posted to arXiv.
Ferroelectricity in atomic-scale TiO₂ dielectric films published in Science with the Salahuddin group.
Key Publications
All publications →† corresponding · * equal contribution · > 4600 citations, h-index 27
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1.
S. Susarla*, M. H. Naik*, D. D. Blach, J. Zipfel, T. Taniguchi, K. Watanabe, L. Huang, R. Ramesh, F. H. da Jornada, S. G. Louie†, P. Ercius†, A. Raja†. “Hyperspectral imaging of excitons within a moiré unit-cell with a sub-nanometer electron probe.” Science 378, 1235 (2022)
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2.
A. Sood†, J. Haber, J. D. Carlström, et al., A. Lindenberg†, F. H. da Jornada†, A. Raja†. “Bidirectional phonon emission in two-dimensional heterostructures triggered by ultrafast charge transfer.” Nature Nanotechnology 18, 29 (2023)
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3.
A. Raja*†, L. Waldecker*, J. Zipfel, Y. Cho, S. Brem, et al., T. F. Heinz, A. Chernikov†. “Dielectric disorder in two-dimensional materials.” Nature Nanotechnology 14, 832 (2019)
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4.
A. Raja†, A. Chaves, J. Yu, G. Arefe, H. M. Hill, et al., D. R. Reichman, A. Chernikov†. “Coulomb engineering of the bandgap and excitons in two-dimensional materials.” Nature Communications 8, 15251 (2017)