Visualizing Van der Waals Epitaxial Growth of Two-Dimensional Heterostructures

Abstract

Understanding the growth mechanisms of two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures is of great importance in exploring their functionalities and device applications. A custom-built system integrating physical vapor deposition and optical microscopy/Raman spectroscopy was employed to study the dynamic growth processes of 2D vdW heterostructures in situ. This allows us to identify a new growth mode with a distinctly different growth rate and morphology from those of the conventional linear growth mode. We propose a model that explains the difference in morphologies and quantifies the growth rates of the two modes by taking the role of surface diffusion into account. We have systematically investigated a range of material combinations including CdI2/WS2, CdI2/MoS2, CdI2/WSe2, PbI2/WS2, PbI2/MoS2, PbI2/WSe2 and Bi2Se3/WS2. These findings may be generalized to the synthesis of many other 2D heterostructures with controlled morphologies and physical properties, benefiting future device applications.

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• 2D materials and van der Waals heterostructures
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Cited by in corpus (2)

• Dative epitaxy of commensurate monocrystalline covalent-van der Waals moiré supercrystal
• Wafer-scale epitaxial growth of the thickness-controllable van der Waals ferromagnet CrTe2 for reliable magnetic memory applications