Emerging field of few-layered intercalated 2D materials

The chemistry and physics of intercalated layered 2D materials (2DMs) are the focus of this review article. Special attention is given to intercalated bilayer and few-layer systems. Thereby, intercalated few-layers of graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides play the major role; however, also other intercalated 2DMs develop fascinating properties with thinning down. Here, we briefly introduce the historical background of intercalation and explain concepts, which become relevent with intercalating few-layers. Then, we describe various synthetic methods to yield intercalated 2DMs and focus next on current research directions, which are superconductivity, band gap tuning, magnetism, optical properties, energy storage and chemical reactions. We focus on major breakthroughs in all introduced sections and give an outlook to this emerging field of research.