Advances in honeycomb layered oxides: Part II -- Theoretical advances in the characterisation of honeycomb layered oxides with optimised lattices of cations

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent theoretical advances in understanding honeycomb layered oxides, focusing on cation diffusion, symmetries, topological aspects, and phase transitions, with implications for experimental characterization and material stability.

Contribution

It introduces a novel theoretical framework linking conformal field theory to honeycomb lattice properties and explains phase transitions in layered oxides involving cation arrangements.

Findings

Link between Liouville conformal field theory and lattice characterization

Idealised model capturing cation-vacancy duality and phase transitions

Explanation of stable Ag bilayer formation and bifurcation mechanisms

Abstract

The quest for a successful condensed matter theory that incorporates diffusion of cations, whose trajectories are restricted to a honeycomb/hexagonal pattern prevalent in honeycomb layered materials is ongoing, with the recent progress discussed herein focusing on symmetries, topological aspects and phase transition descriptions of the theory. Such a theory is expected to differ both qualitatively and quantitatively from 2D electron theory on static carbon lattices, by virtue of the dynamical nature of diffusing cations within lattices in honeycomb layered materials. Herein, we have focused on recent theoretical progress in the characterisation of pnictogen- and chalcogen-based honeycomb layered oxides with emphasis on hexagonal/honeycomb lattices of cations. Particularly, we discuss the link between Liouville conformal field theory to expected experimental results characterising the optimal nature of the honeycomb/hexagonal lattices in congruent sphere packing problems. The diffusion and topological aspects are captured by an idealised model, which successfully incorporates the duality between the theory of cations and their vacancies. Moreover, the rather intriguing experimental result that a wide class of silver-based layered materials form stable Ag bilayers, each comprising a pair of triangular sub-lattices, suggests a bifurcation mechanism for the Ag triangular sub-lattices, which ultimately requires conformal symmetry breaking within the context of the idealised model, resulting in a cation monolayer-bilayer phase transition. Other relevant experimental, theoretical and computational techniques applicable to the characterisation of honeycomb layered materials have been availed for completeness.