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Updated: Oct 25, 2025

Residue-Free Fabrication of van der Waals Heterostructures of Two-Dimensional Materials
Published on: July 18, 2025
UItra-low friction and edge-pinning effect in large-lattice-mismatch van der Waals heterostructures
Mengzhou Liao1,2, Paolo Nicolini2, Luojun Du1,3
1Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics and Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Abstract:
Two-dimensional heterostructures are excellent platforms to realize twist-angle-independent ultra-low friction due to their weak interlayer van der Waals interactions and natural lattice mismatch. However, for finite-size interfaces, the effect of domain edges on the friction process remains unclear. Here we report the superlubricity phenomenon and the edge-pinning effect at MoS2/graphite and MoS2/hexagonal boron nitride van der Waals heterostructure interfaces. We found that the friction coefficients of these heterostructures are below 10-6. Molecular dynamics simulations corroborate the experiments, which highlights the contribution of edges and interface steps to friction forces. Our experiments and simulations provide more information on the sliding mechanism of finite low-dimensional structures, which is vital to understand the friction process of laminar solid lubricants.
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