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Engineering interlayer hybridization in van der Waals bilayers

Nature Reviews Materials (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

In the decade since the introduction of van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures for designer devices, there has been an abundance of studies on the artificial assembly of vdW heterostructures for light–matter interactions, charge and energy transport, and other condensed matter phenomena. The interlayer interactions or hybridization in these systems non-trivially impact their physical characteristics and are sensitive to a complex set of interdependent, externally tunable parameters. There lacks a coherent perspective on how these external stimuli can be used together to engineer materials with desired properties. Here, we systematically address how interlayer hybridization in semiconducting vdW bilayers can be controlled for the realization of different properties in vertically stacked structures. We also discuss new research directions to engineer the interactions beyond bilayers and highlight opportunities that arise when different tuning parameters are simultaneously coupled.

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Fig. 1: Tuning electronic hybridization in van der Waals bilayers.
Fig. 2: Properties of semiconducting van der Waals bilayers tunable with electronic hybridization.
Fig. 3: Phonon and thermal transport in van der Waals bilayers.

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Acknowledgements

E.B. was supported by the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences (BES) in Quantum Information Science under award DE-SC0022289. M.D. and A.R. were supported by the US DOE Office of Science for support of microelectronics research, under contract number DE-AC02-05CH11231. S.K. was supported by the US DOE BES under Award No. DE-SC0021984. F.H.J. was supported by the US DOE BES Award No. DE-SC0021984, and by the National Science Foundation CAREER award through grant no. DMR-2238328. A.S. acknowledges startup funds from Princeton University.

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Elyse Barré, Medha Dandu, Sudipta Kundu.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Elyse Barré, Medha Dandu & Archana Raja

  2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Sudipta Kundu & Felipe H. da Jornada

  3. Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Aditya Sood

  4. Princeton Materials Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Aditya Sood

  5. Stanford PULSE Institute, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA, USA

    Felipe H. da Jornada

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Barré, E., Dandu, M., Kundu, S. et al. Engineering interlayer hybridization in van der Waals bilayers. Nat Rev Mater (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-024-00666-1

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