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Designing artificial two-dimensional landscapes via atomic-layer substitution

Authors :
Enzheng Shi
Qingqing Ji
Zhengyang Cai
Haowei Xu
Jihoon Park
Jiangtao Wang
Letian Dou
Cong Su
Changan HuangFu
Juan Carlos Idrobo
Jiadi Zhu
Xiaochuan Dai
Shengxi Huang
Biao Yuan
Pin Chun Shen
Jing Kong
Kaichen Xie
Liying Jiao
Ang-Yu Lu
Yuxuan Lin
Ju Li
Yunfan Guo
Xuezeng Tian
Yi Yu
Tomas Palacios
Kunyan Zhang
Ting Cao
Source :
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
Publication Year :
2021
Publisher :
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2021.

Abstract

Technology advancements in history have often been propelled by material innovations. In recent years, two-dimensional (2D) materials have attracted substantial interest as an ideal platform to construct atomic-level material architectures. In this work, we design a reaction pathway steered in a very different energy landscape, in contrast to typical thermal chemical vapor deposition method in high temperature, to enable room-temperature atomic-layer substitution (RT-ALS). First-principle calculations elucidate how the RT-ALS process is overall exothermic in energy and only has a small reaction barrier, facilitating the reaction to occur at room temperature. As a result, a variety of Janus monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides with vertical dipole could be universally realized. In particular, the RT-ALS strategy can be combined with lithography and flip-transfer to enable programmable in-plane multiheterostructures with different out-of-plane crystal symmetry and electric polarization. Various characterizations have confirmed the fidelity of the precise single atomic layer conversion. Our approach for designing an artificial 2D landscape at selective locations of a single layer of atoms can lead to unique electronic, photonic, and mechanical properties previously not found in nature. This opens a new paradigm for future material design, enabling structures and properties for unexplored territories.

Details

ISSN :
10916490 and 00278424
Volume :
118
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Accession number :
edsair.doi.dedup.....1999acf88defa0b392f25e68c6c16620