Scientific article
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English

Synthetic Semimetals with van der Waals Interfaces

Published inNano Letters, vol. 20, no. 2, p. 1322-1328
Publication date2020
Abstract

The assembly of suitably designed van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures represents a new approach to produce artificial systems with engineered electronic properties. Here, we apply this strategy to realize synthetic semimetals based on vdW interfaces formed by two different semiconductors. Guided by existing ab initio calculations, we select WSe2 and SnSe2 mono- and multilayers to assemble vdW interfaces and demonstrate the occurrence of semimetallicity by means of different transport experiments. Semimetallicity manifests itself in a finite minimum conductance upon sweeping the gate over a large range in ionic liquid gated devices, which also offer spectroscopic capabilities enabling the quantitative determination of the band overlap. The semimetallic state is additionally revealed in Hall effect measurements by the coexistence of electrons and holes, observed by either looking at the evolution of the Hall slope with sweeping the gate voltage or with lowering temperature. Finally, semimetallicity results in the low-temperature metallic conductivity of interfaces of two materials that are themselves insulating. These results demonstrate the possibility to implement a state of matter that had not yet been realized in vdW interfaces and represent a first step toward using these interfaces to engineer topological or excitonic insulating states.

Keywords
  • Van der Waals heterostructures
  • Semimetal
  • Band overlap
  • Ionic liquid gating
  • 2D materials
Research groups
Funding
  • Swiss National Science Foundation - Division II
  • Autre - Graphene Flagship
Citation (ISO format)
REDDY, Bojja Aditya et al. Synthetic Semimetals with van der Waals Interfaces. In: Nano Letters, 2020, vol. 20, n° 2, p. 1322–1328. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.9b04810
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Article (Accepted version)
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Identifiers
Journal ISSN1530-6984
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