Abstract: Emerging nanomaterials have attracted much attention due to their novel functionalities, but have also been hindered by a lack of scalable synthesis and ways to control characteristics. Atomically thin two-dimensional (2-D) materials are good examples of novel materials with promising exotic properties and requiring established manufacturing approaches for practical applications. Heterostructuring is a powerful and general strategy to control the physical properties of materials. Moreover, heterostructuring can offer novel characteristics that differentiate the heterostructure from individual components.

Recently, 2-D/2-D heterostructures prepared by stacking have been explored to observe quantum phenomena. However, fabrication of 2-D/2-D heterostructures has been limited by the difficulty in preparing individual 2-D layers in controlled manner. Heterostructuring with 2-D and conventional materials in other dimensions (e.g., bulk-like structure for 3-D and nanowires for 1-D) has shown great potential for multi-dimensional heterostructures.

In this presentation, I will discuss how to prepare multidimensional heterostructures composed of 2-D and conventional materials. The experimental approach is epitaxial growth Si, Ge, and ZnO on various 2-D materials including graphene, hexagonal boron nitride, and transition metal dichalcogenides. The absence of surface dangling bonds on a 2-D material provides a unique opportunity to overcome material compatibility issues. Nucleation strategy and novel characteristics of multidimensional heterostructures will be discussed in detail.