Quantum paraelastic two-dimensional materials

We study the elastic energy landscape of two-dimensional tin oxide (SnO) monolayers and discover a transition temperature using ab-initio molecular dynamics (MD), that is close to the value of the elastic energy barrier J derived from T = 0 K density functional theory calculations. The power spectra of the MD evolution permits identifying soft phonon modes likely responsible for the observed structural transformation. The mean atomic displacements obtained from a Bose-Einstein occupation of the phonon modes suggest the existence of a quantum paraelastic phase, that could be tuned charge doping, implying that SnO monolayers could be two-dimensional quantum paraelastic material with a charge-tunable quantum phase transition.