Clean assembly of van der Waals heterostructures using silicon nitride membranes

Wendong Wang; Nicholas Clark; Matthew Hamer; Amy Carl; Endre Tovari; Sam Sullivan-Allsop; Evan Tillotson; Yunze Gao; Hugo de Latour; Francisco Selles; James Howarth; Eli G. Castanon; Mingwei Zhou; Haoyu Bai; Xiao Li; Astrid Weston; Kenji Watanabe; Takashi Taniguchi; Cecilia Mattevi; Thomas H. Bointon; Paul V. Wiper; Andrew J. Strudwick; Leonid A. Ponomarenko; Andrey V. Kretinin; Sarah J. Haigh; Alex Summerfield; Roman Gorbachev

doi:10.1038/s41928-023-01075-y

Journal article Clean assembly of van der Waals heterostructures using silicon nitride membranes

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Wendong Wang, Nicholas Clark, Matthew Hamer, Amy Carl, Endre Tovari, Sam Sullivan-Allsop, Evan Tillotson, Yunze Gao, Hugo de Latour, Francisco Selles, James Howarth, Eli G. Castanon, Mingwei Zhou, Haoyu Bai, Xiao Li, Astrid Weston, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Cecilia Mattevi, Thomas H. Bointon, Paul V. Wiper, Andrew J. Strudwick, Leonid A. Ponomarenko, Andrey V. Kretinin, Sarah J. Haigh, Alex Summerfield, Roman Gorbachev. Clean assembly of van der Waals heterostructures using silicon nitride membranes. Nature Electronics. 2023, 6 (12), 981-990. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-023-01075-y

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Layer-by-layer assembly of van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures underpins new discoveries in solid state physics, material science and chemistry. Despite the successes, all current 2D material (2DM) transfer techniques rely on the use of polymers which limits the cleanliness, ultimate electronic performance, and their potential for optoelectronic applications of the heterostructures. In this letter, we present a novel polymer-free platform for rapid and facile heterostructure assembly which utilises flexible silicon nitride membranes. Our technology allows for vdW heterostructure assembly at high temperatures >600°C, various solvents and in ultra-high vacuum (UHV), making it suitable for industrial scale-up. We demonstrate that this allows the production of 2D heterostructures with perfect interfaces free from interlayer contamination and correspondingly excellent electronic behaviour. The UHV transfer synthesis approach employed here for the first time, can reliably create graphene moiré superlattices with over an order of magnitude improvement in their structural homogeneity. This technology opens up a potential avenue for industry-compatible manufacturing of vdW heterostructures.

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