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Updated: May 11, 2026

Residue-Free Fabrication of van der Waals Heterostructures of Two-Dimensional Materials
Published on: July 18, 2025
Strong light-matter interactions in heterostructures of atomically thin films
L Britnell1, R M Ribeiro, A Eckmann
1School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK.
Abstract:
The isolation of various two-dimensional (2D) materials, and the possibility to combine them in vertical stacks, has created a new paradigm in materials science: heterostructures based on 2D crystals. Such a concept has already proven fruitful for a number of electronic applications in the area of ultrathin and flexible devices. Here, we expand the range of such structures to photoactive ones by using semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs)/graphene stacks. Van Hove singularities in the electronic density of states of TMDC guarantees enhanced light-matter interactions, leading to enhanced photon absorption and electron-hole creation (which are collected in transparent graphene electrodes). This allows development of extremely efficient flexible photovoltaic devices with photoresponsivity above 0.1 ampere per watt (corresponding to an external quantum efficiency of above 30%).
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