General synthesis of two-dimensional van der Waals heterostructure arrays

Jia Li; Xiangdong Yang; Yang Liu; Bolong Huang; Ruixia Wu; Zhengwei Zhang; Bei Zhao; Huifang Ma; Weiqi Dang; Zheng Wei; Kai Wang; Zhaoyang Lin; Xingxu Yan; Mingzi Sun; Bo Li; Xiaoqing Pan; Jun Luo; Guangyu Zhang; Yuan Liu; Yu Huang; Xidong Duan; Xiangfeng Duan

doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2098-y

General synthesis of two-dimensional van der Waals heterostructure arrays

Nature. 2020 Mar;579(7799):368-374. doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2098-y. Epub 2020 Mar 11.

Authors

Jia Li^#¹, Xiangdong Yang^#¹, Yang Liu^#², Bolong Huang^#³, Ruixia Wu¹, Zhengwei Zhang¹, Bei Zhao¹, Huifang Ma¹, Weiqi Dang¹, Zheng Wei⁴, Kai Wang⁵, Zhaoyang Lin², Xingxu Yan⁶, Mingzi Sun³, Bo Li^{1

7}, Xiaoqing Pan^{6

8}, Jun Luo⁵, Guangyu Zhang⁴, Yuan Liu^{1

7}, Yu Huang⁹, Xidong Duan¹⁰, Xiangfeng Duan¹¹

Affiliations

¹ Hunan Key Laboratory of Two-Dimensional Materials, State Key Laboratory for Chemo/Biosensing and Chemometrics, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, China.
² Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
³ Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China.
⁴ Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
⁵ Center for Electron Microscopy, Tianjin Key Lab of Advanced Functional Porous Materials, Institute for New Energy, School of Materials, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin, China.
⁶ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA.
⁷ School of Physics and Electronics, Hunan University, Changsha, China.
⁸ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA.
⁹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
¹⁰ Hunan Key Laboratory of Two-Dimensional Materials, State Key Laboratory for Chemo/Biosensing and Chemometrics, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, China. xidongduan@hnu.edu.cn.
¹¹ Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA. xduan@chem.ucla.edu.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 32188941
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2098-y

Abstract

Two-dimensional van der Waals heterostructures (vdWHs) have attracted considerable interest^1-4. However, most vdWHs reported so far are created by an arduous micromechanical exfoliation and manual restacking process⁵, which-although versatile for proof-of-concept demonstrations^6-16 and fundamental studies^17-30-is clearly not scalable for practical technologies. Here we report a general synthetic strategy for two-dimensional vdWH arrays between metallic transition-metal dichalcogenides (m-TMDs) and semiconducting TMDs (s-TMDs). By selectively patterning nucleation sites on monolayer or bilayer s-TMDs, we precisely control the nucleation and growth of diverse m-TMDs with designable periodic arrangements and tunable lateral dimensions at the predesignated spatial locations, producing a series of vdWH arrays, including VSe₂/WSe₂, NiTe₂/WSe₂, CoTe₂/WSe₂, NbTe₂/WSe₂, VS₂/WSe₂, VSe₂/MoS₂ and VSe₂/WS₂. Systematic scanning transmission electron microscopy studies reveal nearly ideal vdW interfaces with widely tunable moiré superlattices. With the atomically clean vdW interface, we further show that the m-TMDs function as highly reliable synthetic vdW contacts for the underlying WSe₂ with excellent device performance and yield, delivering a high ON-current density of up to 900 microamperes per micrometre in bilayer WSe₂ transistors. This general synthesis of diverse two-dimensional vdWH arrays provides a versatile material platform for exploring exotic physics and promises a scalable pathway to high-performance devices.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.