Epitaxial Growth of 2D Core-Crown SnS₂/SnSe₂ Heterostructure Through Interfacial Modification with...

Developing generalized strategies for controlled synthesis of 2D heterostructures remains a significant challenge because the existing approaches often suffer from poor reproducibility and scalability. In this study, a solution synthesis approach for epitaxial core-crown heterostructures with controlled band alignment, that overcomes these challenges is reported. Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) is used as a structure-directing agent to reduce lattice mismatch between SnS₂ and SnSe₂ (10-10) surfaces and direct epitaxial growth of SnSe₂ crown on SnS₂ seed. Additionally, PVP adsorption to the basal plane prevents van der Waals stacking and stabilizes 2D heterostructures during synthesis. Driven by interfacial thermodynamics, the formation of the core-crown heterostructure is highly reproducible and the size of the 2D heterostructure and relative areas of the core and the crown can be precisely controlled in a two-step process by varying synthesis times for the seed and the crown. The identified growth pathway for 2D heterostructures can be generalized to other combinations of van der Waals materials to provide a platform for synthesizing micron-size epitaxial heterostructures with a desired electronic structure for catalysis and microelectronics.