Two-dimensional van der Waals materials

Abstract

Graphene is not the only atomically thin material of technological importance. Diverse families of newly harnessed monolayers have far-reaching implications for basic physics, materials science, and engineering.

Engineering multiple topological phases in nanoscale Van der Waals heterostructures: realisation of α-antimonene

“…Van der Waals heterostructures consist of multilayers of weakly-coupled few-monolayer-thick sheets of materials [1][2][3][4]. This weak coupling means that the intrinsic properties of individual layers of the material of interest may be preserved, only mildly perturbed by interactions with other layers, and so provides potential for realisation of new topologically interesting materials [4].…”

“…This weak coupling means that the intrinsic properties of individual layers of the material of interest may be preserved, only mildly perturbed by interactions with other layers, and so provides potential for realisation of new topologically interesting materials [4]. Topological insulators are materials in which strong spin-orbit coupling (SOC) leads to an inversion of the usual band structure, and hence to unusual topologically protected boundary states [5,6].…”

Properties of in-plane graphene/MoS 2 heterojunctions

“…[7][8][9] Specifically, 2D materials tend to form weak van der Waals (vdW) interactions with other 2D and 3D structures; 5,[10][11][12] this introduces a gap between vdW-bonded planes of atoms across which there are no covalent or metallic bonds, which significantly degrades the contact quality by causing an additional tunnel barrier (TB) for carriers. 5,11,13 Creating pure edge contacts in 2D materials, an approach that could reduce this TB, 14 is difficult between the different planar structures of these systems.…”

Crystal and Magnetic Structures in Layered, Transition Metal Dihalides and Trihalides

“…Chromium trihalides were identified as some of the earliest ferromagnetic semiconductors, and CrX 3 compounds in general have received recent attention as candidate materials for the study of magnetic monolayers and for use in van der Waals heterostructures, in which their magnetism can be coupled to electronic and optical materials via proximity effects [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. Developing cleavable ferroic materials, both magnetic and electric, is key to expanding the toolbox available for designing and creating custom, functional heterostructures and devices [22][23][24]. Although FM and ferroelectric materials play the most clear role in such applications, the development of spintronics employing antiferromagnetic materials may open the door to a much larger set of layered transition metal halides [25][26][27].…”